THE 



WAYS OF WISDOM 



OTHER SERMONS 



BY 

V 

WM. R. RICHARDS 

Crescent Avenue Churchy Plainjield, New Jersey 








New York 

ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 



lOIT COMOEtt* 



Copyright, i826, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 



edward o. jenkins' sons, 
Printers and Stereotypers, 
20 North William Street, New York. 



These few sermons have been printed in compli- 
ance with a request from friends whose wish I cannot 
disregard. Knowing that such discourses must de- 
pend for their chief interest on the circumstances of 
original delivery, I have retained so far as might be 
their original form. 

The selection I have tried to make fairly represent- 
ative of our usual services on the Lord's Day. Let 
me hope that the topics of Christian Giving and Bib- 
lical Study deserve to be so regarded ; and more espe- 
cially all that concerns the sacrifice and gracious ex- 
ample of our Lord. 

Between Solomon and the beloved disciple, the 
beginning of wisdom and the ripe maturity of faith, 
perhaps each may find his portion of meat in due 
season. 

Plainfield, November, 1886. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

1. — The Ways of Wisdom, 5 

II.— Christian Giving as a Matter of Business, 22 

III. — Christian Giving as a Luxury, . . . 39 

IV. — The Prayer-Meeting, 51 

V. — Following is Believing, 67 

VI.— The Hand of Ananias, ..... 88 

VII. — An Easter Sermon, . . . . .106 

VIII. — The First Adam and the Last, . . .123 
IX. — The Cost of Christian Usefulness, . . 141 

X. — The Old Testament Prophets, . . .158 

XL— The Synoptic Gospels, 179 

XIL— The Gospel of John, . . . . .200 



I. 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM* 

" Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her 
paths are peace." — Prov. iii. 17. 

TO-DAY is observed in many of our churches as 
children's day. This does not mean that all of us 
who are old enough to vote must stay at home : or 
that we must sit on one side as mere spectators, and 
let the younger ones do the worshipping. But it 
means that we all come together to-day for a chil- 
dren's service, remembering that we ourselves have 
been children, even the oldest of us ; and that a good 
deal of the child sticks to us still. In college, at 
commencement time, when graduates of all ages were 
apt to come back for a day or two to visit their alma 
mater, we often noticed that the oldest classes, men 
who had been out of college thirty, forty, fifty years, 
seemed to take the heartiest pleasure of all in making 
themselves boys again : those gray-haired dignitaries 
of the Church and the State would march through 
the college grounds, singing their student songs at 
the top of their voices, not at all afraid of compro- 



* Preached on Children's Day, June 13, 1886. 

(5) 



6 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



mising their manhood by this renewal of the customs 
of their youth. And so it is no compromise of dig- 
nity for any of us to come to this children's service 
as participants ; to place ourselves, as well as we can, 
beside our young fellow-students in the great school 
of life — these small freshmen and juniors ; to share 
their hopes and their curiosity and ambition ; or if 
there should be any one here too old for such conde- 
scension, any one who cannot be converted and be- 
come as a little child at least once or twice in the 
year, he may as well go out of the church at once ; 
for we are told that with such a temper of heart he 
can by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

So then, children, all of you, I ask you if you do 
not like the sound of our text ; and if we have not 
got an interesting sort of teacher to speak to us to- 
day, this Solomon. He does not look much like a 
minister, to be sure ; but he looks as if he had been 
everywhere that any one can go, and had seen pretty 
much everything that there is to see ; and that is the 
sort of man we are glad to listen to. For now that 
we are all boys and girls here together, we may con- 
fess that we do not always care much to listen to 
these ministers. We do not always take much stock, 
as the saying is, in what they tell us. They do not 
know as much as they try to make us think. They 
spend their time in their study, reading old books, 
and writing over old sermons, and in talking to sick 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. y 

people and old ladies ; what do they know about the 
world, and the ways to make money and to have a 
good time? They advise us not to smoke and swear, 
and always to be good ; and go to the prayer-meeting, 
and not to go to the theatre, and all that sort of 
thing : and of course we expect them to talk that 
way ; they can't go to such pleasant places them- 
selves ; and of course they do not wish any one else 
to go. But what do they know about it, anyway ? 
This John the Baptist, who has lived all his life till a 
fortnight ago in the country, where he never saw 
more than five or six people at a time ; or this Elijah, 
who chooses to wander off by himself, and live like a 
hermit on the hills and beside the brook; — these 
preachers, all of them ; — they mean well, no doubt, but 
we think they are a little slow ; they do not know what 
they are trying to talk about. So we listen to them as 
long as we can stay awake on Sunday ; and then go and 
do just as we choose on Monday. 

But, children, we have a different sort of preacher 
to-day, this Solomon : why, he is as rich as Croesus ; 
and you ought to see his horses and the handsome 
houses he has built for himself. And he knows all 
the big people abroad ; and they send presents to 
each other. And his wife is the daughter of the King 
of Egypt. And he has fleets of ships to go any- 
where he sends them ; and they bring him everything 
he wants, all sorts of strange animals and birds, apes 



3 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



and peacocks, and curiosities from all over the world: 
he has a sort of private menagerie up at his own 
house. And the best music ; and all the pleasantest 
people. I tell you that man knows what it is to have 
a good time : he is not one of your humdrum minis- 
ters with nothing but a black coat and a bookcase and 
a barrel of sermons. 

We are something like boys in school, all of us, and 
we do not pay much attention to what our teacher 
says : but an older boy comes back from college, 
where he has made a great mark for himself, and is 
captain of the ball-nine, and knows all the best fel- 
lows ; we will listen to every word that he says. Or 
we are like girls at the seminary ; and one of the older 
girls, who has been out in society for a year or two, 
and has spent one winter in New York, and another 
abroad, and has been introduced to a live lord in 
London, comes back with one of her Paris dresses on ; 
we will listen to her. Well, what has this Solomon, 
this older boy, to say about his good times, now that 
he has come back from college ? 

" Her ways are ways of pleasantness," he says. Why, 
that is good : that sounds like having a good time. 
But whose ways? who is he talking about? "Wis- 
dom's ways." Oh ! that is not quite what we were 
expecting. That sounds rather like a sermon. That 
is what our tiresome old teacher has been telling us 
for a year past : he is always saying that it is pleas- 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. g 

anter to read Caesar than to play ball ; and pleasanter 
to draw circles and triangles on the blackboard than 
to ride on the bicycle. And we always thought he 
was mistaken. And does Solomon come back and 
tell us the same thing? He must be making fun of 
us. No : he says he is in earnest. 

Well, let us find out what he means by the ways of 
wisdom. Ways of wisdom, roads of wisdom. The 
most interesting thing to know about a road, is where 
it goes to. There is something in that. Perhaps he 
means that the way of wisdom leads into more pleas- 
ure at last than any other way, even if it does not 
always seem such a pleasant road to start out on. Yes ; 
and probably that is so sometimes. The other day 
when we were planning to ride over to New Brunswick 
after school, Henry and George, who made haste to 
learn their lessons, and who recited them well, and 
started off promptly, did find the ride pleasanter than 
Tom did, who spent the morning whispering about the 
time he expected to make, and the fun he was going to 
have, and so failed in all his lessons, and was kept in 
after school and missed the ride altogether ; is that 
what you mean, Solomon, when you say that wisdom's 
road is one of pleasantness ; do you mean that it leads 
into more pleasantness than other roads ? " Yes," he 
says, " that is part of what I mean." " I have noticed 
in college," he goes on, " that the fellows who come 
well prepared for the course, and who have cultivated 



10 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



some real taste for study, are the ones who have time 
for all the fun too, and seem to enjoy it most — the 
ball, the boating, the singing, the pleasant society. 
The fellows who go to college meaning to study, and 
with a good start in their studies ; they really get the 
cream of it all." Well, if Solomon says so, we shall 
have to see to-morrow what we can make out of Cae- 
sar and Geometry, shall we not ? or what we can make 
out of our reading and writing and arithmetic. That 
path of hard study has always seemed a pretty rough 
path to walk on ; but if it really leads into all these 
pleasant things, we do not any of us wish to be left 
out of those. 

But hush! Solomon is beginning to speak again. He 
says he will tell us something about those other paths 
that are not paths of wisdom : for he has walked 
along some of them himself far enough to know 
where they go to. There is the path of the idle man 
— no, I mean the idle child ; we are all children to- 
day — a very easy road to travel. Not to do anything 
unless you feel like it : not to do anything that takes 
too much trouble. It is too much trouble to get up 
in time for breakfast, and too much trouble to start 
from home in time for school, or in time for church 
on Sunday. We will come when we are ready, not 
before. And if we disturb five hundred people who 
are trying to unite in prayer, as we march up the aisle, 
and crowd past them into the seats, that makes no 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



II 



difference to us. We are not going to hurry our- 
selves : it is too much trouble. 

And we are not going to trouble ourselves to learn 
all our lessons either, just as the book says they 
ought to be ; we shall spell our words the way we 
think easiest : e-s-y, easy ; t-r-u-b-b-l-e, trouble ; s-p-e-1, 
spell ; h-o-o, who. And it is too much trouble to 
learn that long multiplication table exactly; we shall 
say that 4 times 7 makes 82, if we want to. Perhaps 
yo j have heard that we have a Take-it-easy club in 
our town ; and two of us, you know, Dan and Char- 
lie, were sitting in the yard one day whittling ; and 
their mother called, " Boys, come in here. I want 
you to help me." And they said, " We can't now." 
And she asked, " Why not, Dan ; what are you 
doing?" "Doing nothing." "And what are you 
doing, Charlie ? " " Helping Dan." That is our way 
of living, helping each other do nothing ; and it is 
very easy and pleasant. Do you not think so, Solo- 
mon ? 

" It is a hard way, boys, before you get through," 
he says. " I went by the field of the slothful : 
and it was all grown over with thorns and nettles : 
and the stone-wall was broken down : and I looked 
at it a while, and took a lesson from it. Yet a 
little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the 
hands to sleep : so shall thy poverty come as a rob- 
ber : and thy want as an armed man. It takes a 



12 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



great deal more trouble for the idle man to barely- 
live off his neglected farm than it does for the indus- 
trious man to live in plenty off his farm, with its rich, 
well-kept acres, and its walls always in good repair. 
The idle man always finds the hardest ways of doing 
things. It is harder w r ork to come to church a little 
late, and walk up to your pew with all the people 
staring at you, and find it full, and have to hunt for 
another, than it would have been to start ten minutes 
earlier, and be ready to take part in the service at the 
beginning." 

Why, so our minister used to tell us, and we did 
not pay much attention : but if you say so, Solomon, 
we really must see what we can do about it. If this 
road of slothfulness ends in thorns and nettles and 
hardship, as you say, we shall have to choose some 
other route. 

But are there any other bad roads? "Ah, yes," 
he says, " plenty of them. Did you see those five or 
six young men walking into a pleasant-looking shop 
down-town with such curious doors ; made to open 
easily, but to hide whatever is going on inside ? " 
Yes, we saw them ; and they seemed to be having a 
very pleasant time : they were talking and laughing 
in a loud tone : and we can hear them now inside 
there laughing louder yet : they seem too happy to 
contain themselves ; and very good friends they are 
with each other. And sometimes they have tried to 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. I3 

make us go in with them. And they have called us 
babies and fools because we did not know how to 
enjoy ourselves. How is it, Solomon ? You have 
been to college : is that the way to enjoy yourself — 
to go off every now and then on a spree ? Do these 
boys and men who drink have a pleasanter time than 
the rest of us ? 

" They think so, for a little while," he says : " but 
before long they find they are mistaken. They 
have only woe, and sorrow, and quarrelling among 
themselves, and cursing at each other ; and wounds 
without cause that they have given each other, and 
redness of eyes. If you want my advice, it is this : 
' Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it 
giveth his color in the cup, when it goeth down 
smoothly : at the last it biteth like a serpent and 
stingeth like an adder.' And — hear me out : wine 
is not the only thing to look away from ; if I were 
making a new edition of my Proverbs to-day, I should 
tell some of you, children, not to look upon the 
candy when it is sweet, and tempting, and when it 
goeth down smoothly. At the last it biteth like a 
toothache and stingeth like a dyspepsia : and when 
you have thoroughly sickened yourself with it, you 
will wish that you had never heard of the miserable 
stuff ; you will wish that you had been wise enough 
to eat wholesome food ; and eat it at the right time ; 
and had kept your health and strength ; and your 



I 4 THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 

ability to enjoy all the good gifts of God. And — do 
not interrupt me, I am not through yet ; I should 
say to some of you young boys, whom I saw coming 
out of school the other day, trying to light your 
cigarettes and keep them lighted, and finding it 
pretty hard work, and trying to make it seem that 
you were forty or fifty years old — I should say 
that we had a good many curious things in Jerusa- 
lem when I was king there — a regular museum of 
them : but we had not anything quite so curious as 
this, this small roll of paper with a little fire on one 
end and a fool on the other. That would have taken 
the prize away from all the apes and peacocks and 
other curiosities that I got together out of Spain and 
India. Why, boys, you must know that you are 
fools to do such a thing. Perhaps you ask me not 
to call your father names who does the same : but 
your father is a grown man at least, and may not 
have come to this children's meeting ; or if he has, I 
am sure that he would back every statement that I 
make. We are not talking now about his style of 
smoking ; I am not calling him names, for I venture 
to say he does not smoke these miserable, poisonous 
cigarettes. But for us, children and young people, 
to take up a habit wilfully that we have no natural 
inclination for ; that at first is sickening to most of 
us ; that will surely stunt our growth, and stupefy 
our minds, and poison our whole vitality, merely be- 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 15 

cause we think it makes us seem big — — You just 
go home, and open your Bible at my Proverbs : the 
23d chapter : and put in these foot-notes : * Look not 
upon the wine when it is red ; no : nor upon the 
cheap confectionery when it is sweet ; nor upon the 
tobacco-smoke when it is disagreeable and poisonous 
and silly.' So much for that broad pathway of intem- 
perance : it does not lead into pleasantness or peace. 
Far from it." 

Well, Solomon ; you are using rather plain lan- 
guage. Have you anything more to say ? Are 
there any other bad roads ? 

" Oh, yes," he answers : " I cannot take time even 
to name most of them, for you are only children, and 
could not listen to me for an hour or two as grown 
people would without grumbling. But I must speak 
a little longer even to you. There are roads which I 
hope most of you are too young to know much about. 
But perhaps you know something of them ; perhaps 
some of your friends have taught you words, that 
you would not have your mother hear for the world. 
And perhaps they have shown you books and pic- 
tures, that you knew you ought to be ashamed to 
touch or look at. But you were tempted to touch, 
and look, and listen. Oh, do we not all wish some- 
times, children, that we had a clean heart again ; with 
nothing but pure thoughts in it, and nothing but pure 
words coming out of it : so that we could open it, if 



1 6 THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 

we were asked to, and let any one — let our father and 
mother see everything that was there, and know that 
they would not find anything to make us ashamed? 
But then we forget this wish so quickly : and the next 
time we are tempted, we listen and speak again, and 
make ourselves all the more impure. And we even 
find some kind of evil pleasure in what we are so 
ashamed of. It is as if some one with a very soft in- 
viting voice, and a very pleasant face, were saying to 
us : ' Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret 
is pleasant.' O, what a lie that is ! " Solomon ex- 
claims. "And listen to this : whenever you are tempted 
to do, or say, or hear, or see, anything that you know 
you ought to be ashamed of, remember I tell you ; 
' Her feet go down to death ; her steps take hold on 
hell.' ' There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, 
seemeth pleasant, but the end thereof are the ways of 
death.' " 

And so it is with all those ways of foolishness and 
wickedness : they often seem easy and pleasant to 
travel at first, but they lead quickly into trouble and 
want, and shame, and darkness. Now a road ought 
to be named from the place it goes to : and so I say 
the ways of wisdom are pleasantness; and her paths 
are peace. It is not always an easy road to start in, or 
to walk in : it is often up-hill work ; there is no doubt 
about it — but it leads into a pleasant country. And 
even the. path itself grows pleasanter and pleasanter, 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. iy 

the further it leads you into that pleasant country. 
Why, many a boy has begun to study, only because 
he wants to know something, and he finds the study 
itself very disagreeable work. But as he goes on, a 
time comes when the hours that he spends over his 
books are the very pleasantest hours of the whole 
day to him. A boy resists those temptations to 
smoking, and eating, and drinking what is not good 
for him : or breaks off the foolish habit, if he had be- 
gun to form it: and it is pretty hard work: and for 
a while only strong resolution carries him through. 
But a day comes when he takes more pleasure a 
thousand times in his health, and strength, and 
habits of self-control, than he ever would have taken 
in the pleasantest sinful excess. " Wisdom's ways," 
" the path of the just," Solomon says, " may not 
always promise much pleasure to begin with ; but it 
is as the shining light : that shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day." 

Wisdom's ways. But what is wisdom after all? 
Tell us that, Solomon ; you have been telling us 
about a good many kinds of foolishness : tell us what 
is wisdom. Is it to work hard and keep your farm in 
good order ; and raise big crops : and save your 
money and grow rich ? " No," Solomon says, " not 
always : a man can do all that without being a wise 
man : for I myself got more servants, and herds, and 
flocks than any one before me ever had in Jerusalem : 



1 8 THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 

but I looked on all the works that my hands had 
wrought : and all was vanity and a striving after 
wind." 

Well, what is wisdom? is it to study hard at 
school, and learn all that there is to know in our 
books : so that people will point us out as the very 
best scholars ? " No," Solomon says : " not al- 
ways : a boy may do all that, and not be truly wise. 
For I tried to search out all things under the sun : 
and men called me the wise king : my heart had 
great experience of wisdom and knowledge : but it 
was all a striving after wind. My increase of knowl- 
edge was an increase of sorrow." 

" Well, but what is wisdom, this kind of wisdom 
whose ways are pleasantness and peace ; can you tell 
us?" "Yes," he says: " I can, or at least I can be- 
gin to tell you. ' The fear of the Lord is the begin- 
ning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One 
is understanding.' " 

Solomon says that, children : and before he made 
up his mind to that, he had tried pretty nearly every 
path that you could think of : some paths that men 
would call foolish, and some that men would call 
wise : but he had to come back discouraged from all 
of them, to take a new start here : " The fear of the 
Lord is the beginning of wisdom." 

Well, that is a pretty good sermon at last ; and if 
he can make us believe that, I am glad we have let 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 19 

Solomon have the pulpit this morning : though, 
certainly, he has not always talked much like a min- 
ister. Once or twice I was afraid he would say some- 
thing that might sound a little strange in church. 
He called a spade a spade ; and most preachers call 
it an implement of agriculture. But now, before he 
gets through, it seems that he had not forgotten what 
place this is, and what day this is : for he says : 
"This is the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear 
God, and keep His commandments : for this is the 
whole duty of man. The fear of the Lord is the be- 
ginning of wisdom." 

But now, children, before we go away, I must ask 
Solomon to make room for another teacher, wiser 
than he ever was. For this building that we gather 
in is a better temple of worship than Solomon ever 
saw : and this Bible of ours has in it some books 
better than any that Solomon had ever read. He 
was a wise man : and " the Queen of the South came 
from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear his 
wisdom : but, behold a greater than Solomon is here." 
We have been trying to make Solomon tell us what 
is the way, the way of wisdom, the way of pleasant- 
ness and peace. And the most that he can do is to 
say a very few words about the beginning of it. You 
see, poor man, he could talk all day about the ways 
of folly, of slothfulness, and intemperance, and im- 
purity ; because he had walked along some of those 



20 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



roads himself for many years, and knew where they 
went. But the way of wisdom, he never much more 
than looked into that ; and, so all that he can say is : 
" The fear of the Lord is the beginning of it." 

Well, it is something to know as much as that — to 
know how the way of wisdom begins : but we should 
really like to know a little about how it goes on ; and 
what this pleasantness and peace that it leads to are like. 
How shall we learn? Who can tell us? These wise 
men of worldly experience, like Solomon, can always 
tell us more about the ways of folly than they can 
about the way of wisdom. What is the way? Chil- 
dren, I thank God that some of you, young as you 
are, know what it is. You remember that Jesus was 
talking with His disciples just before He left the earth ; 
and He said to them : " Ye know the way whither I 
am going." And Thomas answered with just the 
same sorrowful perplexity that has troubled many of 
us since : " How can we know the way ? " And 
Jesus said : " I am the way." 

That is a better answer than Solomon knew how to 
give ; he could warn us against those dangerous paths 
of idleness and folly and sin ; but how are we to keep 
out of them ? how are we to get out of them ? they 
open before us so pleasantly, so deceitfully. And we 
often start into them without thinking of the danger. 
And then when we have come to grief and shame, and 
really wish to turn back, we do not know which way 



THE WAYS OF WISDOM. 



21 



to turn. And then Jesus speaks to us ; and He is 
greater than Solomon; and He says: "I am the 
way. Give your heart to me ; bring your troubles 
and sins to me in prayer ; tell me about your failures 
and blunders, and all the things that have made you 
sorry and ashamed ; ask me to lead you the right way, 
and I will." I thank God, children, that some of us 
know this to be true. I wish we all knew it. It is 
something that the youngest of us are not too young 
to learn, for He says : " Suffer the little ones to come 
unto me." It is something that the oldest of us, 
even if we have many gray hairs on our head, are not 
too old to learn. For we are all here to-day at a 
children's service. We have wished that God would 
convert us all, and make us as little children, so that 
we might find the way into the kingdom of heaven. 



II. 



CHRISTIAN GIVING AS A MATTER OF 
BUSINESS* 

"Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse." — 
Mal. iii. 10. 

What has that old law of tithes for us Christians ? 

I. First, what was that law ? We learn from 
many sources that in very ancient times the tenth 
was a common form of tribute, whether for secular 
or sacred purposes; when Abraham gave a teiV;h of 
his spoils to Melchizedek, he acted after the common 
custom of the day. Abraham's grandson, Jacob, be- 
ing familiar with this custom, on awaking from that 
dream in which God had promised him safety and 
abundance, vowed that if the promise were fulfilled, 
he would devote a tenth of his yearly income to the 
Lord. This vow might well be recognized as binding 
upon all the children of Jacob, who had hope in the 
promises spoken to their father: accordingly, under 
Moses, the system of tithes or tenths became incor- 
porated in their law. The tenth of all agricultural 

* Delivered before the regular offering for the Board of 
Home Missions, Nov. 15, 1885. 
(22) 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 23 

produce was devoted to God. Indeed, the common 
opinion of Bible scholars has been that there were at 
least two tithes. The statutes on the subject are not 
quite clear ; but comparing what is said in Numbers 
(xviiL 21-28), with what is said in Deut. (xii. 5-18, 
xiv. 22-27, xxvi. 12—14), we conclude that one tenth 
was demanded for the support of the Levites, and 
another tenth for the festivals and relief of the poor. 
The latter, however, was quite largely consumed by 
the offerer himself and his poorer friends in their own 
attendance upon the festival ; and therefore may 
hardly be regarded as a tax. But the first tithe, that 
demanded for the support of the Levites in their sa- 
cred ministry, was a direct offering of one tenth to 
the Lord. This, like all the appointed Jewish offer- 
ings, was intended to denote, that the whole people, 
with their land and all their possessions, belonged to 
God ; the part surrendered to Him a confession that 
the whole was His. 

Now, the statutes of the Jewish law did. not all 
possess equal permanent value. Some of them ex- 
press eternal principles always binding the servant 
of God ; while others were of temporary applica- 
tion. We are not very curious to know to-day what 
particular kind of beasts the Hebrews must call clean 
and what unclean ; but when their law says : " Thou 
shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; honor thy father 
and thy mother "—there, we say, is a law fof us. 



24 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

Now, the Old Testament itself furnishes one means 
of judging which of its own statutes were the more 
important and permanent ; and that is the words 
of the prophets. You may have noticed that the 
prophets very generally ignore the law of Moses, 
basing their own instructions rather on the eternal 
and universally recognized principles of righteous- 
ness. Sometimes (Is. i. 10 — , lviii. 5), speaking almost 
in contempt of the ceremonial fasts and sacrifices, 
and other Mosaic appointments, which might be 
scrupulously observed by one who had no true relig- 
ion in his heart. But sometimes those prophets 
adopt a very different tone. Two, at least, of the 
ancient ceremonies are treated with the greatest rev- 
erence, as if they were seen to embody some eternal 
principle of true religion. One was the Sabba h, the 
consecration to God's honor and service of a special 
portion of that time which is all His : the other, in 
our text, is the tithe, the consecration to God's honor 
and service of a special portion of that wealth which 
is all His. "Will a man rob God?" Malachi ex- 
claims ; "but ye have robbed me ; wherein? in tithes 
and offerings." 

From the Old Testament itself, then, we are justi- 
fied in supposing that the tithe, like the Sabbath, 
may be something more than a mere temporary cere- 
mony. 

II. But what has the New Testament to teach on 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 2 $ 

the subject ? At first thought we should answer, 
" Nothing." The word itself is seldom used, and even 
then with unfavorable associations. It is Pharisees 
who tithe mint, anise, and cummin, neglecting the 
weightier matters of the law. And neither by this 
word nor by any other is the command laid upon 
Christians to pay any particular proportion of their 
means into the Lord's treasury. According to the 
New Testament, the tithe, the demand of just one- 
tenth from all, docs not hold in the Christian Church. 
That fact, I think, ought to be clearly stated, for it 
has to do with the essential character of Christianity. 
Christianity is not a series of detailed rules which 
may be stated for the government of the church. 
Good men, with more zeal than wisdom, have some- 
times been strongly tempted to make such rules for 
their brethren : what they must eat, what they must 
drink, what they must wear, where they must go. 
But, wherever that is done in any church, it is a 
usurpation of power which God never gave one Chris- 
tian over his fellow. Christ has laid on every man 
the burden of deciding these questions for himself. 
And however we may help each other with our coun- 
sel and example, still the burden of actual decision 
must after all be left where God has laid it. The 
New Testament treats us not as little children, whose 
life must be so largely ordered for them even in de- 
tail, but as men and women, who being once furnished 

2 



26 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



with the principles of right living, must then take 
upon ourselves the responsibility, with God's help, of 
ordering our lives for ourselves. That, I say, as con- 
cerns all departments of conduct, has to do with the 
essential character of Christianity. 

The Jew was told, for instance, what kinds of food 
he should eat, and what kinds he must leave alone — 
the problem of diet was all worked out for him : but 
the Christian is thrown back upon this deeper princi- 
ple : " Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatso- 
ever ye do, do all to the glory of God." He must 
work out the problem for himself. 

So with regard to the proper proportion of offering 
for God's service. " One tenth," the law said to 
the Israelites : then their minds might rest easy, 
like the minds of little children, who have obeyed 
their parents' word. But the Gospel comes to 
Christians as to grown men, and says : " Let every 
one of you lay by him in store as God hath prospered 
him": " Every man according as he purposeth in his 
heart : not grudgingly or of necessity : for God loveth 
a cheerful giver." You see, the responsibility of de- 
cision is thrown back upon the Christian himself : no 
prophet or apostle or divine lawgiver will take it off 
his shoulders. He must purpose in his own heart ; 
he must determine how much the Lord has pros- 
pered him : and what proportion therefore should be 
laid by in store for God's use9. 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 27 

You may ask, then, do we find under the Christian 
dispensation anything in any way corresponding to 
the old institution of tithes? The Christian gifts are 
all freewill-offerings, are they not? Yes, Christian 
gifts are all of the free will : and yet, I believe, we do 
find the wise principle of the old tithe very clearly 
reproduced under the Christian dispensation. That 
principle is stated, — what we might call the Christian 
law of tithes is laid down in that passage which I have 
quoted from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. 
Let me repeat it again : " Upon the first day of the 
week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God 
hath prospered him, that there be no gathering when 
I come." 

I wish you to notice two things about the method 
of giving here commended, or, I might say, com- 
manded. First, giving should be a deliberately 
formed habit. The man at certain set times was to 
lay by in store, for this as for the other regular de- 
mands upon his income. Paul was not content to 
gather from the Corinthians whatever money they 
might happen to have in their pockets when he came : 
they must make thoughtful preparation for his com- 
ing ; they must habitually lay by a reserve, to be 
ready for those demands of Christian benevolence. 
The other thing to be noticed about this method of 
giving, is, that the amount should be determined not 
by the urgency of each separate appeal, but by the 



28 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



size of the giver's income. He was to lay by as God 
bad prospered him. There we see clearly the old 
tithe principle ; only the particular proportion is not 
now stated. Let the Christian determine what that 
proportion should be, one-tenth, or less, or more ; but 
on some proportion of his income, to be rendered 
back to God, he must determine : so I understand 
Paul's rule. 

I am firmly convinced, my friends, that this is the 
true method of giving for all of us. Let us compare 
it with another method — I suppose the more common 
method — where money is devoted for benevolence 
merely as special demands arise. Some day I chance 
to hear an appeal for some poor man, or hospital, or 
Mission Board ; and according as the object seems 
more or less worthy, I am induced to give toward it 
more or less of the money I chance to find in my 
purse. Why, in the nature of things, my gifts, ac- 
cording to that system — or rather lack of system — 
cannot be very large. Sometimes for months to- 
gether I shall not hear an appeal that interests me 
more than a few cents' worth : and when occasionally 
I have been deeply moved, and pull out my purse — 
I don't know how it is with you, my friends, but I 
know that my purse, unless some special precautions 
have been taken, is very apt, when I pull it out, to 
be found empty. Paul comes with his story about 
suffering and want at Jerusalem ; and really the man 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 2 g 

moves me very much : but there it is. I have noth- 
ing with me. 

The tradesmen who supply us with coal, and food, 
and clothing, etc., would fare badly, if they had to 
content themselves with such money as chanced to 
be in our purses on the first of the month. They 
have ways of forcing us to take some thought about 
the matter ; to lay by us in store that there be no 
gatherings when they come. This hap-hazard giving, 
then, will always be scanty giving. I think that may 
be affirmed without much qualification. 

You may remember the pretty story of that old 
colored servant in the South, whose master, a Chris- 
tian man, was accustomed to give in this way: say- 
ing that any other method was too much like a tax, 
made religion seem arbitrary and exacting. Pie 
liked to give gladly and freely of what he had when 
the time came. The old servant thought she would 
apply the same method to that evening's dinner. And 
when the family sat down, astonished, to a few cold 
scraps, where they had always found abundance, she 
explained that * she had heard them say so often that 
giving whatever happened to be on hand when the 
time came was so much freer and lovinger way of 
serving those we love best, that she thought she'd 
try it.' 

I presume such an object-lesson as that would 
open the eyes of many of us. As old Thanksgiving 



30 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



Ann expressed it : " It appears that people served 
that way fare slim." And I suspect the Lord's cause 
has fared slim, not so much because His people have 
stubbornly closed their ears when actual appeals were 
made to them, as because they have not formed the 
habit of laying by in store a sum sufficient to meet 
those appeals whenever they should be made. The 
scantiness of the gifts ; that is one objection. 

But I have another grave objection to that hap-haz- 
ard way of giving. It so prolongs and intensifies the 
pain of giving. I suppose there is always a kind of 
pain in depriving ourselves of some good thing that 
we might have kept. Even the gift you offer to one 
you love dearly, and which fills your own heart with 
generous delight, costs you something; else it is no 
gift of yours; and that cost means pain. Indeed, 
that pain, that personal sacrifice, is needed even for 
your own joy in the giving. It is a sort of bitter ap- 
petizer, coming before the feast of benevolence. But 
there is such a thing, my friends, as making a whole 
meal of the bitterness, and losing all the feast. A 
man making a present to his friend may so continue 
to brood over the cost of it, that the deep pleasure 
of giving can find no room in his heart. And so, if I 
leave my offerings to the Lord to be drawn out of 
me by the earnest appeals of needy men and needy 
institutions, why, it is a most distressing process ; a 
sort of perpetual amputation of a very sensitive limb. 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 3 1 

I am distinctly conscious of the pain with every dol- 
lar that is extracted from my unwilling fingers. And 
so I never get time to think of anything else. The 
joy of benevolence! the feast of liberality! Why, 
I have been allowed no chance to recover from this 
smart of privation. 

Then, too, I am always more than half persuaded 
that this particular beggar has made a fool of me ; 
I strongly suspect that the man did not need the 
money so much as I myself ; and it seems to me that 
for every dollar I send to the heathen, I must pay 
five dollars to get it to them ; and so of all my gifts. 
And these various suspicions keep the old wound 
open, so that my offerings, small as they may seem 
to others, are like a constant laceration of my own 
flesh. 

We take up a good many contributions in this 
church ; and it is partly out of compassion for you, 
my friends, that I urge you to have the pain of it 
over with once for all. The pain of an amputation, 
I fancy, does not depend so much on the amount of 
limb taken off as on the amount of cutting. All of 
us who have a keen sense of the value of money, 
know that it hurts as much or more to count out ten 
shining dollars, one by one, as to draw a check for a 
hundred. Now, I say, let us have the pain con- 
nected with this process over with as quickly as pos- 
sible, that then we may enjoy full leisure for the 



32 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

luxury of Christian giving — this finest, rarest pleas- 
ure of the Christian life. Suppose one of you, who 
have thought these incessant appeals for charity a 
great nuisance, determine for once to try Paul's rec- 
ommendation : reckon up your probable income — or 
"how the Lord is prospering you," to use his old- 
fashioned phrase — and then determine upon some 
proportion of it — what proportion it is for you to 
say — some fixed proportion, to be set apart for God's 
uses. Well, the thing is done, and it was not very 
hard to do after all. The sum is larger than you ever 
dropped in the box before ; but now that you are 
thinking of what the Lord has done for you, and ask- 
ing what you shall offer back to Him, the sum seems 
pitifully small. Indeed, you hardly have the face to 
mention it to Him. However, the sum has been fixed 
upon: to be provided for now through the year, just 
like your other obligations. And then the question 
is, how to use it ? You have this fund on hand, or 
subject to your order: what shall you give it to? 
And you now find yourself impatient for those ap- 
peals which once seemed so tiresome. You can weigh 
them against each other, and see how to divide up 
your small fortune to best advantage. There is no 
more sense of privation in this distribution than if 
you were running your eye down a list of securities 
to choose the best for your own investments. 

You will make some mistakes, no doubt, in the selec- 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 33 

tion ; not every stock goes up for the investor, or even 
holds its own. And so not all of your gifts will help 
relieve a genuine need ; but you have now become 
strangely philosophical under such disappointment. 
For you are investing this money for God ; and He 
holds you responsible only for selecting, as well as you 
can, the safest investments. He will stand all the losses. 

Just dwell for a moment on that view of the case. 
We had been excusing ourselves pretty generally 
from giving at all, since we found such grave objec- 
tion against almost every cause presented. And there 
are grave objections. I should be puzzled to name 
a single charitable organization, or Board of our 
Church, with whose management I am altogether sat- 
isfied. Sometimes I am greatly dissatisfied ; but 
what shall I do ? Here I am with a sum of the 
Lord's money that must be disposed of, and I am 
persuaded that the worst of these Boards can dis- 
tribute much of this money to better advantage than 
I could by myself alone : so I make choice among 
them as best I may, and find in the end that, with 
here and there a partial failure, the investments have 
turned out pretty well after all. I suppose that ser- 
vant who straightway traded with his lord's talents 
may, here and there, have fallen into some unprofit- 
able venture ; but he fared much better in the end 
than the servant who would not trade at all, nor even 

risk an investment with the bankers ; but, because of 
2* 



34 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

suspicions and fears, went and hid his lord's money 
in the earth. 

On the whole, then, this giving, when you already 
have on hand the sum of money that has to be given, 
proves a very delightful and interesting process. 
That painful sense of privation was done with at the 
outset, when you first set this sum apart : and ever 
since you have been free to enjoy the noble pleasures 
of liberality. 

Another fact I am sure some will notice. Your 
fund goes further than you had anticipated. At 
least if you begin the year by giving to the various 
objects of benevolence only about the same amount 
that you had been accustomed to give by the former 
method, it will soon come to light that not much in- 
road is -de on the fund. Ah, my friends, this pro- 
portion of our income seemed very small when com- 
pared with God's rich mercies to us ; while those 
previous unsystematic gifts of ours had seemed very 
large, measured by the pain of giving them ; but I 
think many a Christian, on reducing his charities to 
order, has been confounded and humiliated to learn 
how far short those formidable gifts had always fallen 
even of this small percentage of what God had been 
giving him. We had almost supposed that we were 
offering in one way and another the larger part of 
our means back to the Lord : and now this petty 
tenth, or whatever it may be, leaves for all our ac- 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 35 

customed charities a veritable embarrassment of 
riches. 

Well, but what shall the proportion be ? No divine 
law solves that problem for us : by what principle of 
mathematics shall we solve it for ourselves ? I can- 
not answer for you. " Every man as he purposeth in 
his heart." But you remember the basis of the cal- 
culation, " as the Lord hath prospered you." Your 
subject of thought, when you begin to calculate, must 
be, what has the Lord done for me ? For remember, 
you are offering this proportion back to the Lord, not 
to James, or John, or Paul, or whatever the name may 
be of each man that asks your gifts. What has the 
Lord done for you ? Pray, do not suppose your an- 
swer finished when you have counted up merely the 
dollars He has given you. Has He not given more, 
even His own life, for your ransom ? What propor- 
tion of your means shall you devote ? One young 
man came running to Jesus with substantially that 
question, and the Lord answered : " One hundred 
per cent. : sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the 
poor, and come and follow me." 

I do not know what answer the Lord may give to 
each member of this congregation : but I do know 
that He is the one to give the answer : that thinking 
of His ransom paid for us, we are to ask Him what 
He would have us offer to Him ; and then scrupu- 
lously set that part aside. And it does seem to me 



36 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



that with our own richer advantages, any Christian 
must doubt whether he has heard the Lord's answer 
correctly until he finds himself authorized to offer at 
least the tenth, the proportion of those poor, half- 
enlightened Jews. It does seem, does it not, as if, in 
many cases at least, that might be taken as a sort of 
a starting-point from which, as the Lord increases our 
means, our charities also should grow. 

Now and then, we are shown by some striking 
example, that this tenth must never be taken as the 
extreme limit of Christian benevolence. Our Lord 
would have us remember through all time that poor 
widow who cast her living into the treasury. And 
she has had not a few imitators. I was grieved to 
learn last spring of the sudden death of a backwoods- 
man, a guide, whom I had just engaged for an excur- 
sion in the woods, and who had served our party 
faithfully before. I learned afterward of a memoran- 
dum of expenses for the previous year found in that 
guide's pocket. He was a man of broken constitu- 
tion, likely at any time to be laid aside. His income 
had been $200. One might have thought that, with 
so little for his own necessity, he would have felt 
himself excluded from the privilege of giving at all. 
His income, I say, was $200. Out of it he had given 
to the Lord $117. The memorandum was intended 
only for his own eye. I hope none in this congrega- 
tion with any income at all, or able to earn any in-. 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 37 

come at all, will feel himself or herself excluded from 
the privilege of setting apart deliberately and cheer- 
fully some definite proportion of it for the Lord's 
service. Why, for the last century and a half, Chris- 
tians in all our churches have been singing devoutly, 
as we have sung to-day : 

" Were the whole realm of nature mine, 
That were a present far too small." 

And all this time we have possessed our fair share of 
this realm of nature ; suppose we had even been con- 
tent to make so small a present as the tithe — suppose 
one-tenth of all Christian incomes to-day were offered 
to the Lord: truly it would seem an insignificant gift 
in comparison with that complete surrender spoken 
of in our song — but how it would fill to overflowing 
the depleted treasuries of all our Boards and charita- 
ble organizations the world over ! What a good 
thing it would be for us as members of this congre- 
gation, if our share of that offering could be made in 
full. Some of you, I know, do make it now. Some, 
I hope, give more than that proportion : — if all might 
give it ! If in just this one matter of thoughtful, 
prayerful setting apart, out of our means, for the 
Lord's work, He had no item of charge against any 
one of us, — why, really, I would then almost take it 
upon me to speak as prophet, and promise you in God's 
name rich blessings from on high. At least I can 



38 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

take as my own the words of this ancient prophet ; 
and in view of the coming new-year, with its balanc- 
ing of accounts, and its new plans and purposes, I 
can beg you all to make also this purpose and then 
adhere to it, as God may prosper you, with true busi- 
ness-like fidelity. " Bring ye all the tithes into the 
storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and 
prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I 
will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour 
you out a blessing, that there shall not be room 
enough to receive it." 



III. 



CHRISTIAN GIVING AS A LUXURY * 

" And afterward offered the continual burnt-offer- 
ing, both of the new moons, and of all the set 
feasts of the Lord that were consecrated, and 
of every one that willingly offered a freewill- 
offering unto the Lord." — Ezra iii. 5. 

The contributions made to the service of the Lord 
by the ancient Hebrews were of various kinds. There 
were, first, the tithes, what we should call a ten per 
cent, income tax, given for the support of the Le- 
vites, and for some other purposes, with the similar 
contribution of first-fruits. Then there were the 
sacrifices at the altar, including three principal varie- 
ties. The sin-offering, appointed as a means of expi- 
ation for different kinds of offences — the prominent 
feature being the pouring of the blood of the victim 
upon the altar. The burnt-offering, signifying conse- 
cration, as if the offerer would have ascended in his 
own person, like the smoke of the sacrifice, toward 
God. And lastly, the peace-offering, which was chiefly 
a feast of thanksgiving, eaten before the Lord at the 



* Delivered before the special offering for the debt of the 
Board of Home Missions, July 12, 1885. 

(39) 



4Q 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



gate of the tabernacle. Now, of these four principal 
Jewish contributions, the second and third have no 
close resemblance to anything in our Christian cere- 
monies. We bring no sin-offering to the sanctuary ; 
for the Lord Jesus has given Himself for us once for 
all, the just for the unjust ; and " by one offering He 
hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." The 
burnt-offering of consecration, on the other hand, is 
something which ought to find its counterpart in the 
entire life of every Christian, and therefore cannot 
well be restricted to any particular symbol. There- 
fore, out of the four kinds of contributions we have re- 
maining only the first and the fourth to correspond 
with some part of our present Christian duty. As to 
the first, we have other opportunities for asking the 
question, what authority that old law of tithes has for 
us, or what lesson it may teach us. 

But our lesson to-day will be drawn from the fourth 
kind of Jewish contributions, the peace-offering. As 
I have said, this was in general a feast of thanks- 
giving, which the man offered, and of which he him- 
self- partook before the Lord. We might properly 
call it the Jewish Eucharist. One variety of it went 
by the special name of thank-offering. But under all 
circumstances the peace-offering was distinguished by 
one special peculiarity, and it is this that I present 
for your special notice now. It was voluntary: either 
the fulfilment of a vow which one had voluntarily 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 4I 

made, or the carrying out of some present impulse of 
gratitude. As we read in our text, " of every one that 
willingly offered a freewill-offering unto the Lord"; 
that name gives the essential idea, " a freewill-offer- 
ing." 

Now, it might be said that all Christian contribu- 
tions are freewill-offerings. Whatever that old law 
of tithes may still have for us to-day, the New Testa- 
ment writers studiously refrain from placing it upon 
us as a law. Paul has stated expressly the Gospel 
law of giving : " Every man according as he purposeth 
in his heart, so let him give : not grudgingly, or of 
necessity : for God loveth a cheerful giver." All this 
might be said, and would be true, I believe. Yet 
may it not be well that we should still keep before 
our minds this distinction of tithes and freewill-offer- 
ings, which God placed before His ancient people ? 
Suppose a man should regularly and conscientiously 
set apart a portion of his income for charitable pur- 
poses : whether a tenth, or more, or less ; that pro- 
portion, which according to his best judgment, God 
expects him to give : should make calculation for 
this in advance, as he would for any other of the 
regular demands upon his income : and then apply 
the sum through the year in the ways that seem best 
to him. There we should have the Christian form of 
a tithe. It has become for him a simple matter of 
duty to give this amount, or this proportion, year 



42 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

by year: just as he would pay his yearly tax ; or the 
rent of his house ; or the interest on a debt. Quite a 
commonplace proceeding after a while. 

Now, may not this man, in addition to such habit- 
ual offering, be glad to find opportunity for some 
spontaneous gifts to the Lord ; something free even 
from the compulsion of habit, or of previous resolu- 
tion ? It is true that his tithe was freely offered : 
no constraint has wrung it from him. Still, the giving 
of that proportion has now come to be, in his own 
mind at least, a matter of duty, of habit, brought 
under this constraint of conscience, if no other. And 
may not God be willing to allow him, in addition to 
this, the luxury of spontaneous, impulsive benevo- 
lence ? 

Kindly impulse is a poor substitute for good habit. 
But what a noble thing human character may become 
when the solid structure of good habit is beautified 
on every side with the adornment of kindly impulse ! 

We find it so in the relations of home and friend- 
ship. There are certain forms of courtesy and respect 
which my friend must render me, if he is to remain 
my friend. No formal law exacts them, it is true : 
but they are rendered back and forth between us, as 
matter of recognized custom : and any neglect be- 
comes an offence. But I shall love my friend much 
better if, in addition to those habitual courtesies, 
which might almost be reckoned up for years ahead, 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 43 

our friendship blossoms into all sorts of unplanned 
and unexpected acts of tenderness and good-will. 

If I must take my choice between them, let me 
have from him the habitual courtesy rather than the 
whimsical extravagance of affection to-day, followed 
by rude neglect to-morrow. But that need not be 
the alternative : I should like best that my friend be 
always habitually courteous toward me ; and some- 
times overflowing with impulsive good-will. 

So with the kind offices rendered in our homes : 
here is a son, we will say, and dependent upon him 
an aged, helpless father. Now, there are certain 
forms of provision for that father's comfort, which 
rest as a duty upon the son. According to his abil- 
ity, he should devote so much time, and so much 
money to the happiness of the aged man. Nothing 
can excuse him for neglecting this custom of filial 
obedience. No occasional outbursts of affection 
could atone for habitual neglect. And yet, does not 
the father look for something besides that customary 
methodical respect and care? Is he not specially 
gladdened by unlooked-for words of affection, and 
deeds of kindness ; which seem to prove that the 
current of his son's love, always filling its appointed 
channel, must now and then overflow the banks, a 
veritable flood of good-will ? Does not the son, more- 
over, prize the opportunity of showing sometimes 
such wilful extravagance of love? 



44 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



Now, I believe that our Father in heaven leaves 
room for such spontaneous overflowings in our obe- 
dience to Him. You may say that here it is pre- 
sumptuous to talk of overflowing, since from the 
outset we owe Him all. And very true this is. But 
in many ways, my friends, He refrains from exacting 
the all that we owe. 

In the matter of time, for instance. Our time is 
all the Lord's ; it is all holy. What hour, or minute, 
or second may we rightly withhold from His service? 
And yet He is pleased to claim only a certain por- 
tion of this time for His own special uses; one day 
out of the seven, the Lord's day ; set apart for His 
worship, for publicly honoring His name, and doing 
His work. The devotion of that part of the time to 
Him rests upon us with a sort of compulsion. For, 
however we may understand the authority of the 
fourth Commandment over Christians, we do all rec- 
ognize it as part of our Christian duty in some way 
to keep the Lord's day holy ; regarding it as in a pe- 
culiar sense the Lord's. The other days are His also, 
but those He has given to us for our work and our 
play ; this day He has reserved. But do we not as 
Christians find it a privilege, of our own free will, to 
set apart other portions of time for God's public 
service, which He has not in any such way exacted 
from us ? — hours taken voluntarily from the busy 
week for united prayer and for Christian effort ? 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 45 

That man denies himself a great luxury who with- 
holds all these spontaneously holy hours, and keeps 
his worship rigidly within just that proportion of one 
day in seven, which God Himself has claimed. 

And so with our own personal employment of the 
hours of each separate day. Every Christian, I should 
hope, cultivates the habit of secret prayer at special 
times ; in the morning, perhaps, when he may ask 
God's help for the duties of the day ; and at evening, 
when he may thank God for the help rendered, and 
ask His protection through the night. I think there 
can hardly be a healthy spiritual growth without such 
fixed habits of secret communion with God. But, 
my friends, how poorly that man has understood his 
Christian privilege who never stretches himself be- 
yond these habits of secret prayer ; whose heart 
never overflows with thankfulness except according 
to rule ; who never lifts his thoughts Godward at 
unaccustomed times and places ! No, no ; the habit, 
the appointed rule is, indeed, a necessity of Christian 
living ; but the luxury of Christian living is found, 
how much of it, in these spontaneous outbursts and 
overflowings of devotion ! 

Now, has not God allowed His servants a similar 
commingling of fixed habit and changing impulse in 
the employment of their property? Among the 
Jews we found the appointed law of tithes ; a habit 
of giving to God's service, which, should have become 



4 6 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 



to every obedient Israelite as much a matter of course 
as his daily food and drink — the tenth of his income, 
just as much as the seventh of his time, devoted 
to the Lord. But that was not all. God would 
also encourage among His people a cheerful and vol- 
untary service ; therefore we found also this institu- 
tion of the peace-offering — this beautiful and appro- 
priate ceremony by which every man, whose own 
heart prompted him to give, might rejoice in a free- 
will contribution to the Lord. 

And I believe that God continues for us, in other " 
forms, the same duties and privileges. Every Chris- 
tian, I am sure, should practice that regular laying 
by for Christian benevolence as God hath prospered 
him — some proportion of his means, which he shall 
call holy, just as he calls one day in seven holy, and 
with the same fixed habit of devotion. That should 
become in his eye a regular duty, a thing of custom. 
But such custom, you may say, dulls the sense of 
luxury in giving, reduces what should be a matter of 
loving impulse to a matter of unconscious habit. Be 
it so ; then God allows and encourages us to practice 
additional liberality in all sorts of unexpected ways 
and times, that through this infinite variety of the 
gifts we may never be sated with the luxury of giving. 

The freewill-offering-— the thank-offering. When 
God has conferred some unexpected blessing upon 
us^is it not the natural impulse of Christian gratitude 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 47 

to make some unplanned offering to Him ? When 
we have been restored from sickness, or delivered 
from danger, or brought home safe from a journey : 
or when similar blessings have been bestowed on 
those dear to us : or the still richer spiritual gifts : 
when we have known our sins forgiven ; when some 
tormenting doubt has been dispelled ; when we have 
been aided in the hour of temptation, or lifted up 
after we had fallen ; — when our prayers for children 
and friends are answered, and they are brought with 
us to taste that the Lord is gracious — at such times 
of special receiving, do we not violence to our own 
natures if we seek not out some opportunity for spe- 
cial giving ? Our customary tithes have been paid, 
of course ; but this thirsty gratitude of ours would 
still refresh itself with some larger draught, with the 
abundance of a freewill-offering to the Lord. 

And does He not in His kind providence furnish 
room for such overflow ? What varied and ever- 
changing opportunity He offers through the chang- 
ing needs of His cause, the changing needs of men, 
for this overflow of His people's liberality. 

I once knew a good man who gave liberally to the 
charities of the church : always setting apart at the 
beginning of the year, out of his anticipated income, 
a large sum, the largest given by any one in that 
church, for the Lord's service. But not a single year 
passed, I think, that he did not come to me at the 



48 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

end of it with a large additional gift ; for the Lord 
had prospered him above his expectations, and here 
was his thank-offering. And I can assure you that 
the Lord never failed to show us some appropriate 
use for the sacrifice. I cannot but believe, my friends, 
that if more of us should set apart our tithes at the 
beginning of the year, more of us would have occa- 
sion to bring thank-offerings at the end of it. 

I am not here to-day to name to each of you some 
special cause for a freewill-offering. From the na- 
ture of the case, each of you must do that for him- 
self, or for herself. It must be the free will. But I 
am here to point out one very favorable opportunity 
for using such gifts as your hearts prompt you to 
bring. An extraordinary case of need is presented 
to us : a need that can be properly met only by some 
extraordinary liberality on the part of the churches. 

I will state as clearly as I can what this need is ; 
how it has arisen ; the danger which it involves ; and 
how it has been proposed to supply the need. Our 
Board of Home Missions reported to the last General 
Assembly a debt of over $110,000. In addition to 
this the Board is responsible for a debt incurred for 
school and chapel work by the Woman's Executive 

Committee [A statement was made here of 

the heavy debt resting on the Board of Home Mis- 
sions, its origin ; and the methods proposed by the 
General Assembly for meeting it.] . . . . 



CHRISTIAN GIVING. 49 

It is in response to these requests from the General 
Assembly, that our session has appointed the special 
offering that we are now about to take. I call your 
attention particularly to the fact that whatever is given 
to-day must not be subtracted from what we should 
give in our regular offering for Home Missions next 
November. Our tithes, in other words, are appropri- 
ated in advance. We have no right to draw on them 
to-day. Therefore it is that I have opened before you 
the privilege of a thank-offering, a freewill-offering. 
Has not the Lord startled many of us with unlooked- 
for blessings, through these past months, delivering 
us from evil, making our cup run over with good, for- 
giving our iniquities, healing our diseases, redeeming 
our life from destruction, crowning us with loving- 
kindness and tender mercies? Some of us have come 
for the first time — and others have brought children 
and friends for the first time to this table of the Lord, 
this table of blessing. Surely our hearts must have 
often swelled with impulses of grateful affection. 
" What shall I render unto the Lord for all His bene- 
fits toward me ? " — that has been our cry. The order- 
ly interchange of gifts between us has been broken 
through. He has surprised us with His mercies ; we 
would surprise Him with some offering of our love. 
Well, I have shown you the opportunity. God in 
His providence has set before us this opportunity. I 
will not so much as hint at the sum which we may 
3 



50 CHRISTIAN GIVING. 

expect to raise, and I will not myself urge one of you 
to put one cent in the box. Those regular necessities 
of Christian benevolence will meet us some other day. 
To-day we are offered the luxuries of Christian be- 
nevolence : our own impulses of love may now exer- 
cise themselves without constraint. It is a voluntary 
sacrifice, a thank-offering; a freewill-offering to the 
Lord. 



IV. 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 

" What prayer and supplication soever be made by 
any man, or by all Thy people Israel, which 
shall know every man his own plague and his 
own sorrow, and shall spread forth his hands 
toward this house: then hear thou from 
heaven, Thy dwelling-place, and forgive." — 2 
Chron. vi. 29, 30 (Rev. Version). 

A PART of Solomon's prayer at the consecration of 
the temple. It shows one important purpose which 
that temple was to serve in the religious history of 
Israel : that of concentrating, if I may so express it, 
the people's prayer. They were henceforth to pray 
toward Jerusalem, toward the temple : thereby their 
faith would be strengthened, as often as they remem- 
bered the God who had hallowed that place with His 
own name, and who was always inviting and attend- 
ing to the prayers of all His people : furthermore, 
their heart's desire would be directed toward the 
peace of Jerusalem, and the honor of Jehovah's 
name ; thus they would be saved from selfishness or 
narrowness in prayer. We all remember that good 
man hundreds of years later, and hundreds of miles 
away in Babylon, that good man Daniel, who in 

(51) 



52 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 



spite of the king's hostile decree, went into his 
house, and kneeled, three times a day as he had done 
aforetime — " and his windows in his chamber were 
open toward Jerusalem." 

Now, in our Christian worship, neither this use of 
the temple, nor the temple itself, finds a place. Yet, 
I think we all feel the need of something corre- 
sponding to this use of the temple : something which 
will concentrate the prayer and faith and spiritual 
desire of God's people : so that each petitioner, even 
though he come with his own plague and his own 
sorrow, a burden which no brother can share with 
him, may yet feel that his prayer is lifted to heaven, 
God's dwelling-place, by the united voices of all God's 
people. And we have not any of us outgrown our 
dependence upon the helpful influence of locality. 
That old apostolic phrase, so closely associated with 
the first introduction of Christianity into Europe, — 
the place " where prayer was wont to be made ": has 
deep meaning for all of us. How much every Chris- 
tian ow r es in the upbuilding of his Christian character 
to that place where prayer is wont to be made. That 
is, in fact, what makes this Christian Sabbath so essen- 
tial to vital religion : a set time when all may come 
to the wonted place of prayer. 

But these services on a single day in the week 
cannot meet the whole need. The Christian values 
also his closet, some place where every day he habit- 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 53 

ually resorts for secret prayer: and, furthermore, the 
craving manifests itself in many ways for help through 
the week from the place of public prayer. Go into a 
foreign cathedral at any hour : and you find there 
worshippers kneeling in various shrines, before vari- 
ous images, praying. Superstition, prayer to the 
saints, much of it : and yet we always wish to tread 
sottly in passing such a silent worshipper: and we 
have felt a deep beauty and fitness in such a homely 
use for the splendid cathedral. Some Protestant 
churches also, in our larger cities, are kept open con- 
tinually: and the invitation hanging at the door greets 
every tired passer, " Come in and rest and pray." And 
we have blessed the Christian thoughtfulness which 
offers that invitation, and provides for all that place 
of prayer. 

In our Presbyterian churches, we have recognized 
this same need — the need of help through the week 
from the place of public prayer : and our response to 
this need has commonly taken the form of what we call 
the prayer-meeting. Now as always, burdened and 
tempted Christians, knowing every one his own plague, 
and his own sorrow, desire to spread forth their hands 
toward God's house: and for the last two or three 
generations, we and some other branches of the Chris- 
tian Church have offered them this way of doing it. 
I call attention to the fact that while the need has 
always existed, the prayer-meeting, in the form that 



54 THE PRA YER-MEE TING. 

we now have it, is comparatively a modern method of 
answering that need. For this fact justifies us in 
asking the question : " Does the prayer-meeting in 
the form familiar to us always serve its purpose ? 
does it always and fully answer the need which has 
called it into existence ? " I raise this question now, 
and wish to talk with you about it very simply and 
disconnectedly for a little while ; partly because I 
have in mind some things that I wish to say : partly 
because there are a great many things connected with 
this whole question that I wish to learn. 

I think we should all confess that the church 
prayer-meeting does not always answer this need that 
we have mentioned very successfully. Some of you, I 
fancy, would go further, and question whether in many 
cases it serves any good end whatever. I find it 
the almost universal testimony of such ministers and 
others as I meet, that the church prayer-meeting — I 
will explain in a moment why I qualify the term in 
this way — that the church prayer-meeting is the hard- 
est part of their work to keep in at all satisfactory 
condition ; and we can all easily picture to ourselves a 
church-meeting which is almost everything that a re- 
ligious service should not be : an irksome, exhausting 
duty, in which the leader scolds the rest, while they si- 
lently blame each other; and even uncomfortably accuse 
themselves because they do not all take part more 
freely in the meeting. Take part freely ! There is 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 55 

only one free, sincere religious exercise in the whole 
performance, and that is the thanksgiving from every 
heart, not loud, but deep, when the weary hour reaches 
its close. Let me say very quickly that the materials 
for such a picture have not been collected from meet- 
ings in our own church. To me, at least, those have 
been in the main, and some of them in a marked de- 
gree, interesting and strengthening and restful. I 
have been glad when they said unto me, let us go up 
to the house of the Lord. And yet I have repeatedly 
asked myself the question, even here: does the church 
prayer-meeting, as we know it, fully answer this great 
need of God's people? 

Now that the question is fairly before us, I am 
ready to tell you a few of the things I have had in 
mind to say. One is this. A church-meeting is one 
designed for all ages and classes in the church. That 
fact at once introduces difficulties unknown in some 
other meetings for prayer. A company of young boys, 
or a company of young girls, meet together to pray. 
They are of nearly the same age, familiar with each 
other's experiences, assured of each other's sympathy 
and interest : they are accustomed to talk together 
freely of all their affairs, their work, their study, their 
play. Surely whenever their hearts are filled with love 
for Christ, it cannot be, and it is not, very hard to talk 
with each other freely of that, and to pray with each 
other for more of it. There is no reason why they 



56 THE PRAYER-MEETING. 

should not, there is every reason why they should, 
speak and pray freely, and the service is easily made 
helpful and delightful to all. Such we find to be the fact. 
Such prayer-meetings of young men, and of young 
women, and of older women for that matter, and of 
older men — meetings of any limited class — are quite 
generally successful in attaining the end desired. 
The same holds good commonly in the church-meet- 
ing, so long as the church is young and small, its 
members well known to each other ; for the close 
fellowship and identity of interest among them are 
probably just what have drawn them together as a 
church. The whole church is a limited class. 

But let that church grow older and larger, embracing 
now persons of all ages and callings and degrees of in- 
telligence. Now, it is not possible nor desirable that 
this large number of widely different people should still 
be all intimate with each other. They must cherish 
Christian love for each other. The more universal 
sympathy and kindliness they can have, the better; 
but universal intimacy becomes out of the question. 
The precious jewel of friendship becomes worthless if 
broken up too fine. Jesus died for the world because 
His love for all men was so great ; but He chose 
twelve men to be continually near Him. Out of the 
twelve there was one disciple whom Jesus loved ; and 
the Lord Himself was able to hold a very different 
sort of prayer and conference meeting when only the 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 57 

eleven sat about Him, from what He held when the 
multitudes thronged to hear His word — " Let not 
your heart be troubled." How we have all read and 
reread that friendly conversation : " Thomas saith 
unto Him ; . . . Jesus saith ; . . . Philip saith unto 
Him ; . . . Jesus saith ; . . . Judas saith unto Him, 
not Iscariot ; Jesus saith." Even those most retiring 
disciples, Philip and Judas, that we scarcely hear of 
by name in any more public assemblage, found a 
tongue there in that small company of friends. How 
unreasonable we should be to complain because no 
such familiar conversation was carried on among 
them publicly in the temple. 

And so I say, when any church has grown, and 
comes to embrace people of all ages, of many neigh- 
borhoods, of every degree of intelligence, then that 
old familiar church-meeting, a small company of 
friends, talking together freely of their trials and 
joys, becomes impossible. But sometimes I think 
the church, not recognizing this impossibility, still 
aims at the old style of meeting, and is greatly dis- 
couraged because of its continual failure. We think 
we have lost the Christian love which formerly made 
it so easy for us all to take part : while it may be 
that the only real change has been the enlargement 
of numbers, and coming in of strangers, the increas- 
ing varieties of condition. 

I am convinced that people have often been blamed 

3* 



58 THE PRAYER-MEETING. 

unreasonably for not taking part in these church-meet- 
ings. We say, you find it easy enough to talk about 
other things : why not about religion ? But is it so ? 
Are they all in the habit of talking about other things 
before so large a company of people ? You overhear 
a boy describing to a half dozen companions some- 
thing that he has seen, and that has greatly interested 
him, — an exciting ball game, or something of that 
sort. He seems a young Demosthenes; his tones, 
his gestures, his expressive metaphors. Why, you 
say to yourself, "That is real eloquence. Boy, come 
with me ; I want you to tell that same story to some 
of my friends here and you lead him into a hall or 
large drawing-room where a hundred or more people 
are waiting attentively. " Now, my boy, tell these 
people what you were saying/' He sidles up to the 
wall, and stares at you helplessly as if he had not an 
idea in his head. "Why, speak out freely : tell them 
about the ball game." He knows nothing about the 
ball game ; he is wondering how he can dodge out of 
the room. Now it would not be at all just to con- 
clude that that boy has really lost his interest in ath- 
letics merely because he seems to have lost the use 
of his tongue ; and yet is not that the way we some- 
times do reason about these silent attendants at our 
church-meetings? So, that is one thing I have had 
in mind to say. When a church has attained consid- 
erable size we cannot always expect for our church- 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 59 

meeting — and it will not be wise to seek — that kind 
of easy familiarity which belongs only to a small 
company of friends. We may find it wise to appoint 
other kinds of services — familiar services ; young peo- 
ple's meetings, neighborhood meetings, Sunday-school 
prayer-meetings, etc.; but the church-meeting, if there 
is to be any such thing, must place a somewhat dif- 
ferent aim before itself. 

And now, while we are on this side of the topic, I 
want to say another thing that I have had in mind : 
the Scriptures nowhere lay it as a duty upon all 
Christians to speak in public worship. Christ does 
lay upon His disciples clearly the duty of confessing 
Him: of showing that we are not ashamed of Him ; 
of making it known, wherever there might be doubt, 
that we are on His side. But apart from that, the 
duty of public speech, or public leading in prayer, is 
nowhere laid upon the whole membership of the 
church. Indeed, the Scripture warnings sound as if 
our danger were rather of too much talking than too 
little ; we are warned against ostentatious prayer, and 
hollow professions, and loving in word and in tongue, 
instead of in deed and truth. And the only elaborate 
directions given as to a public religious service, are to 
this effect : " If any man speak in a tongue, let it 
be by two, or at the most by three : and let the 
prophets speak two or three. If anything be revealed 
to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his 



6o 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 



peace ": evidently Paul was more afraid of the Corin- 
thians' loquacity than of their silence. My friends, it is 
a very peculiar perversion of the Scriptures, this notion 
which we have allowed to become so common, that 
the principal active work — almost the only active work 
to be done for Christ — is speaking in meeting. When- 
ever God gives us words to speak in meeting or else- 
where, it is at our peril that we keep silence ; but the 
Scriptures are very far from saying that God does 
give all His people words to speak in public. And it 
is also very far from the truth that such public speak- 
ing is the only way of doing good work and exerting 
strong influence. Why, the fact is notorious that the 
women of the church, while they have not generally 
felt it a duty to raise their voices in public worship, 
have yet from the days of the apostles to our own 
contributed their full share to the working strength 
of the church. Let us lay this down, then, as a 
second point : the Scriptures give us no reason to 
suppose that every Christian, or even every Christian 
man, is called of God to pray or teach in the public 
services of the church — much less that such a duty 
may be laid on every man at any particular service. 

And now for another point, a question: — are not 
the uncomfortable stiffness and awkwardness of many 
a prayer-meeting due to just this mistaken idea, that 
it is every one's duty to speak in that meeting? Is 
not that what makes each silent pause so depressing ? 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 



61 



We think that every moment of silence means a waste 
of time, and that somebody ought to break it in- 
stantly ; and therefore we grow more and more un- 
comfortable until it is broken. There is nothing in 
silence itself to produce such unpleasant results. 
There is nothing awkward or depressing in the long- 
continued silence, when we sit in this place and watch 
the breaking of the bread, and the filling of the cup, 
and the slow distributing among all the people. We 
do not wish that silence broken hastily. I revere the 
Society of Friends for a great many good things that 
they have done ; but for nothing more than the very 
high honor they have given to silence in public wor- 
ship. They have taken as the rule of their service 
what is the dictate both of Scripture and of common- 
sense : " If you have nothing to say, say nothing." And 
they can act upon that principle, if need be, through 
the entire hour of service. But I fancy they do not 
often have a chance to do that, for when once you 
take off from men's consciences this paralyzing sense 
of immediate compulsion, that they must say some- 
thing, whether or no ; soon you are surprised — and 
they are surprised — at the number of good things 
they really have to say. I am convinced that not 
only the awkwardness of that silence, but even the 
silence itself in our prayer-meetings, spring often from 
this notion that we all ought to be speaking. I appeal 
to you on this point ; as you sit here on Sunday, with 



62 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 



no opportunity of opening your mouths, do not in- 
teresting thoughts often come into your minds which 
you would rather like to speak : interesting illustra- 
tions or confirmations of the preacher's statements, — 
sometimes, perhaps, emphatic contradictions of his 
statements ? That is my own experience. You would 
be surprised to know what good sermons sometimes 
pass through my mind when I have a chance to sit 
silently in the pew — why, at church as listeners we 
feel as if we could outpreach St. Paul himself. But at 
prayer-meeting, with that distressing fear upon us 
that we may be compelled to speak the next minute, 
we seem to have not one idea in our heads. 

Moreover, may not this mistaken notion account 
partly for the special reluctance often shown by the 
men of our churches to come to our prayer-meetings? 
Why are the women so often the more constant at- 
tendants? May it not be because by our customs 
they can sit through the whole meeting, whether 
others occupy the time or not, with an untroubled 
conscience ? 

Now, I hope we may, at least, lay this down as a 
fundamental rule of our own church-meeting. There 
is no sort of compulsion resting on any attendant, 
man or woman, to say one word. If God has given 
him a word to speak, that is another matter, which he 
must settle with God. But we, as a meeting, lay no 
such obligation upon him ; and we welcome him as 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 63 

one of our fellow-worshippers, once, twice, twenty 
times — all his life long — even though he never once 
cares to open his mouth among us. " What prayer 
and supplication soever be made by any man, or by 
all Thy people Israel, which shall know every man his 
own plague and his own sorrow, and shall spread forth 
his hands toward this house." " Come in, and rest, and 
pray." I want that to be the well-understood invita- 
tion of our church-meeting. Weary are you, tired 
out by the work of a busy day ; too tired to try to 
collect your thoughts for any public speech or prayer? 
or burdened are you in spirit, troubled by doubts 
and fears, with no strength and no light that you 
could think of offering for the help of others? and 
you are not drawn to a meeting where you would be 
expected, if not requested by name, to lift your voice ; 
you turn away from such a meeting. I do not blame 
you. But our invitation is that you come with us and 
rest and pray. We shall sing together ; and some les- 
son from God's Word will be read to us ; and if any 
of us have a word of counsel or encouragement or pub- 
lic prayer, we shall speak it ; or, if not, we can rest 
together quietly for a little while in God's house, the 
place where prayer is wont to be made ; knowing 
every man and woman of us his own plague and his 
own sorrow ; and we can feel that these silent and 
secret prayers are going up to heaven, God's dwell- 
ing-place, as a united supplication of God's people. 



6 4 



THE PRA YER-MEETING. 



Shall we not come to this understanding, then, 
about our church-meeting? It is a meeting for the 
church, for all classes in the church and the congre- 
gation ; for those with much to say, and those with 
nothing to say ; especially for all those who are weary 
and burdened by the week's struggle with the world 
and with sin, and who feel this need of resting and 
praying together. Perhaps this need exists in very 
many cases where it has not yet been felt. We invite 
you all. 

These are a few of the things that I have had in 
mind to say on that side of the subject, the side of 
every man's inalienable right in the house of God to 
keep silence. 

Now, there is much to say ; but not much time left 
for saying it, on the other side — the advantages of 
public teaching and testimony. I would not give 
any one the impression that I have been trying to dis- 
courage a general taking part in our prayer-meetings. 
I have tried to encourage it rather. For, as I said a 
few moments ago, if you once take off from men's 
consciences the compulsion to speak, I believe many 
of them will soon be surprised to find how much they 
have to say. This inalienable right to keep silence 
lies at the basis of all free and profitable speech. 

There is great value in the many-sided instruction 
and testimony of a hearty prayer-meeting. " At the 
mouth of two or three witnesses," is one of the old- 



THE PRAYER-MEETING. 65 

est of legal maxims : two or three, or eight or ten, 
personal witnesses to God's gracious help give us a 
kind of assurance which no one witness, howevei 
eloquent and trustworthy, could give by his own un- 
supported word, — this, even if all the testimonies 
were given in just the same form. But, really, if it is 
true evidence, there will be a most helpful diversity 
in the testimonies. It takes many pairs of eyes to 
see all sides of a fact. It took four evangelists, in- 
spired as they were, to give us even what partial 
knowledge we have of the life of Christ. It takes 
many readers to expound a passage of Scripture. 
Every man is narrow, and more or less one-sided. 

Moreover, not all the men whom God has clearly 
called to teach have ever been ordained to the official 
ministry. The apostles, you remember, once set 
apart a layman named Stephen, as deacon, to care 
for the poor ; but it was very few days before he was 
outpreaching the best of them ; and until the layman 
has served out that short but glorious ministry of his, 
we scarcely hear a word from Peter and the rest of 
the regular clergymen. Every healthy congregation, 
I think, has some of these unordained preachers, to 
whom, whenever they open their mouths to speak, 
pastor and all do well to listen ; and it is greatly for 
the advantage of our church-meeting that all these 
men have full opportunity there to say what God has 
given them to say. 



66 



THE PRA YER-MEE TING. 



Moreover, this is greatly to their own advantage. 
As pastor, or as leader of the prayer-meeting, I will 
not compel any one to take part in it ; but as per- 
sonal adviser, I think I should urge almost every 
young man to cultivate these gifts. Not necessarily 
in the church-meeting; but somewhere. I think a 
Christian man, almost every Christian man, ought to 
learn to speak for his Lord, and to lead in public 
prayer. It is a well-known principle of education, 
that the way to learn anything thoroughly is to teach 
it. The way to learn thoroughly these precious truths 
of our religion, is to try to teach them to some one 
else. Spiritually, and even intellectually, the meeting 
of prayer and conference is a most valuable exercise 
to those who give their thought and strength to it. 
So my personal advice to any young man would be : 
not, indeed, to take part in meeting for the sake of 
filling up time, whether he has anything to say or 
not : but to make it a study that he have something 
to say, which will be interesting or helpful to some 
of God's people, and then find the proper time to 

say it [Request was made in closing that 

members of the congregation should present their 
thoughts on this topic ; especially that those who 
felt the need of a church-meeting, but had not been 
drawn to our present form of service, should let us 
know what sort of service they would feel to be help- 
ful and would like to attend.] .... 



V. 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING* 

" Then answered Peter, and said unto Him, Behold, 
we have forsaken all, and followed Thee" — 
Matt. xix. 27. 

I HAVE chosen this text for the sake of the last 
three words in it, " and followed Thee." It is only 
one of many passages in these gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, which use these words for denning 
the Christian life. To be a disciple, or, as we should 
say, to be a Christian, was to follow Christ, often 
literally to walk about Palestine after Him. And as 
soon as any one began to follow Christ honestly in 
this way, he was a Christian. That was the way the 
subject was understood in those days. " We have 
forsaken all and followed Thee," Peter says to Christ : 
as much as to say, " You can see from what it has 
cost us that we are sincere followers "; and Christ 
accepts the test by answering, " No man hath for- 
saken houses or lands or any other precious thing for 
my sake, but he shall receive an hundredfold." 



* Preached June 6, 1886, at a time of special religious 
inquiry. 

(67) 



68 FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 



It is always hard to explain to one who does not 
know how to take the first step toward salvation, how 
to become a Christian. So soon as one has entered 
the right way, then we can much more easily tell him 
how to continue in it. But while he is still outside : 
why, it is like tiying to talk to some foreigner who 
does not know a single word of our language. If he 
knew only a few sentences, we might lead him slowly 
along the path of knowledge by means of those few — 
but when not one word is intelligible ! And often I 
think those who stand without in the dark, inquiring 
for the way of light and courage and hope, are only 
confused by the well-meant directions offered them. 
Has it not been so with some of us ? " What are we 
to do ? " we have been asking ; " which way are we to 
go ? " And some one answers, " Come this way ": 
but which is this way ? we cannot really see him, 
cannot tell how he is pointing: and he cannot see us, 
and his answer leaves us groping as helplessly as be- 
fore. But at last some helper comes, who has stood 
in just the same kind of perplexity that we are in, 
and has been led out of it : and he well understands 
our troubled cry for help : and places himself beside 
us : and in words that we can hear, and by steps that 
we can take, leads us to the Saviour of us all. And 
then it proves to be not a long journey : there are 
not many steps : for whenever we reach that divine 
Saviour, we learn that it was He who heard our cry* 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 69 

and knew just our perplexity ; and chose and sent 
this one messenger who could lead us back. 

Now, my friends, one proof that the Scriptures of 
the New Testament are inspired of God, is that this 
divine manifoldness of instruction appears in them. 
They all tell one story, " that Christ Jesus came into 
the world to save sinners "; but they tell it in so 
many different ways, through the lips and the pens 
of so many different men, that no sincere seeker after 
the light need wander on long in the dark. Learned 
Nicodemus ; the blind beggar at Jericho ; the Samar- 
itan woman ; the Roman soldier ; the jailer at Phi- 
lippi ; the little children brought in their mothers' 
arms ; those of Caesar's household ; men of all condi- 
tions, of all lands, of all tongues, may each of them 
find here an invitation which they can understand 
and so receive. That was part of the miracle at Pen- 
tecost, you remember : " Parthians, Medes, Elamites, 
dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Egypt, strangers of 
Rome, Jews and proselytes, we hear, every man, in 
our own tongue, wherein we were born, the wonder- 
ful works of God." 

This whole Gospel is a good tidings of salvation 
through Jesus Christ. It is one message ; but the 
messengers are many : and each has his own way of 
telling the story : and you may catch the meaning of 
the story as told in one form ; your neighbor as told 
in another. 



yo FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING, 

I wish now to say a few words about three of the 
more prominent forms of this Gospel message. 

I. One of these is the message as it came through 
the lips of Paul. On the whole, I suppose this is 
better known to the church than any other. If an 
inquirer should ask, "How can I be saved?" prob- 
ably nine Christians out of ten would answer in Paul's 
words : " Not through works of the law, but through 
faith in Jesus Christ, "or something to that effect. And 
this is an answer that the church ought to know well, 
and ought to have always on its tongue's end. It is 
Paul's answer given out of his own experience, a 
rich and deep experience, through which God has 
greatly enriched the theology of the Church universal ; 
and there will always be many inquirers who will 
need just this direction, need to be brought back from 
error on this side. But you will remember that in 
some respects Paul's experience was very peculiar. 
He had never known Jesus personally : and neither 
did he derive his faith from those who had known 
Jesus personally, but from that supernatural vision of 
the risen Christ granted to himself. Even before his 
conversion, too, he had always been a very religious 
man, zealous for God, working with tremendous en- 
ergy for righteousness and salvation, but failing to 
get them. And now suddenly, after years of such 
profitless working, it was shown him that Jesus Christ 
had bought this salvation for him with His blood, 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 71 

and was now offering it to him freely. And forever- 
more that is Paul's gospel: "That salvation which I 
was working for so hard and could never get, sinner 
that I am, Jesus Christ has freely given me, at the 
cost of His own life, and I take it from Him by faith," — 
not by works of the law, but by faith in Christ. A mar- 
vellous gospel it is, and needed just such a preacher. 
And to the end of time all proud or weary workers 
for salvation, who have been vainly trying to fit them- 
selves for God's favor, trying to earn heaven for them- 
selves by good works, will need to be taught through 
the lips of this apostle. " It is not of works, lest any 
man should boast." 

" Do you think that I am good enough to be a 
Christian ? " some one might ask. " Certainly not ; 
and if you think so yourself, we have great fears for 
you." 

" Just as I am, without one plea, 
But that Thy blood was shed for me." 

We must learn to offer that prayer. And there is no 
part of the New Testament which warns us more per- 
sistently against that deceitful pride, or which humbles 
us more resolutely before the free grace of God, than 
these epistles of Paul. 

And yet those epistles are not the whole Gospel ; 
and I have no doubt that their tremendous sentences, 
and their whole representation of Christian truth, 
have only confused and darkened the soul of many 



72 FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 

an inquirer. " Many things in them hard to be un- 
derstood " — it has always comforted me that old Pe- 
ter made that frank confession about his beloved 
brother Paul's letters. 

Suppose I have had no thought of justifying my- 
self, or earning salvation, or paying my way into 
heaven, or indeed of heaven at all : but, through dis- 
appointment or sorrow, or some other means, I have 
been made hungry for a divine companionship to 
come in and fill my empty life, to purify my foul 
heart : and while I am looking, and listening, and 
hoping, some one reads off to me this statement: 
" Christ has paid the penalty for your sin ; He has 
redeemed you from the curse of the law : here is 
God's word for it. You have only to believe, and 
know that you are saved from condemnation." Why, 
all that may be true ; and I may try to believe it ; 
but the whole scheme seems lifeless and mechanical 
to me. It does not meet my want. I was not trem- 
bling at the thought of future condemnation. I was 
distressed rather at present impurity, and I was hun- 
gering for a present divine friend. And will they put 
me off with a printed sentence in a book — a sort of 
quit-claim deed for a heavenly mansion hereafter? 

We look at the document blankly ; and with sore 
disappointment : we had been looking for a living 
friend: and they try to satisfy us merely with his 
signature made long ago on a piece of parchment. 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 73 

Now, it is true, that such an inquirer, if he looks 
carefully enough, and long enough, will find even in 
Paul's Epistles, answers well suited to his own pecu- 
liar need : but those answers are to be found more 
easily, I think, in some other parts of the New Testa- 
ment. Let us listen then to some of the other mes- 
sengers, some of those who had known and loved Je- 
sus while He was yet alive. 

II. I turn first to that book which has always been 
so unspeakably precious to the Church, the Gospel 
of John : the testimony of the disciple whom Jesus 
loved. What new form will he give to the mes- 
sage ? At first we might conclude that no change 
had been made ; for John uses the word " believe " as 
constantly as Paul, that is his direction to the in- 
quirer. " He that believeth on the Son hath life ; — 
shall not come into condemnation, — is passed from 
death unto life." The sin of the world is its refusal 
to believe in the Son. We might suppose that we 
were still listening to Paul, since we hear the same em- 
phasis given to believing : but in a little while we no- 
tice that even while the word is the same, there is some- 
thing new in the tone of the speaker. Both men 
speak of believing on Christ : but Paul contrasts this 
believing with the works of righteousness by which 
men tried to save themselves : John contrasts believ- 
ing with the works of unrighteousness which men did 
not wish to have reproved by the light. I cannot 
4 



74 FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 

take time here to follow out this difference in the 
point of view: I merely suggest it, as an interesting 
subject of study : and to show that these are two very 
different speakers, though they point men to the same 
Saviour. And if any of you cannot well understand 
what it is to believe according to Paul, it may help 
you very much to study this same word according to 
John. 

But after all, the treasures of this fourth Gospel 
are for the Christian rather than the inquirer ; most 
of all for the mature Christian. Almost the last 
book of the New Testament to be written ; written 
by the beloved apostle after threescore years of lov- 
ing communion with the Lord who so loved him : 
the whole history of Christ appears in these pages 
spiritualized : and one needs some spiritual discern- 
ment, i. e., some Christian experience, to open up 
those wonderful sentences: "The Lamb of God that 
taketh away the sin of the world "; " Whosoever 
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst "; " The bread that I will give is my flesh 
" I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and 
am known of mine " I am the vine, ye are the 
branches "; " If a man love me, he will keep my 
words: and my Father will love him; and we will 
come unto him, and make our abode with him — I 
do not believe that John himself could have under- 
stood such sayings well enough to record them until 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 75 

after long years of Christian growth. It is only little 
by little that any Christian rises to a fair apprehen- 
sion of what they mean. And what hope have we 
that the troubled inquirer, ignorant as yet of the first 
syllable of Christian faith and love, can understand 
those sayings ? They may fill his soul with vague long- 
ing: but that definite and practical direction which 
would tell him how to take the first step — where 
shall he find that ? 

III. If we could only know how Jesus Christ Him- 
self would deal with these inquirers. Why, we can. 
And this brings us to the other form of the message 
which I wish you to consider ; the simplest form of 
all. We have it in those earliest records of Christ's 
own dealings with needy men ; the first three of our 
Gospels. 

Though those books were committed to writing 
some years after the Resurrection, yet we know that 
the substance of them had been the common oral 
teaching of the apostles from the first. It was their 
testimony as eye-witnesses to what Jesus did and said 
from the baptism of John till the time when he was 
taken up into heaven. So we have in those three 
Gospels both the record of Christ's own method with 
inquirers, and also an example of the apostles' method 
with inquirers in those earliest days of the Church. 

Now, if you open those Gospels and read in any of 
them, either Matthew or Mark or Luke, seeking to 



76 FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 

learn how any one could become a Christian in those 
days, you will not hear much about believing or faith. 
Much is said about faith, to be sure, but it is gener- 
ally in connection with miracles. If Christ was to 
perform a miracle for any one, cleanse a leper, cast 
out devils, give sight to the blind, put life into the 
withered hand, they must believe that He could do 
it ; they must believe heartily enough to ask Him 
honestly, and then He granted the request. We can 
understand that well enough. Faith becomes a very 
practical thing put in that light. But as to the spirit- 
ual cures — the spiritual salvation, about which we 
ourselves find it so hard to learn what faith means, 
Christ Himself did not generally use the word faith 
at all ; He used another word which any one could 
understand. If one came to Christ in those days with 
the inquiry, How am I to become Thy disciple ? — 
what was the common answer ? You all know ; it was, 
" Follow me." You can hardly open your Gospels 
anywhere without seeing those words. They give 
tone to the whole narrative, just as the words " faith" 
or "belief" give tone to the Epistles of Paul. That 
is, where Paul would be likely to say " believe," 
Christ says " follow." No doubt the two speakers are 
really saying the same thing, for there are not two 
Gospels, two ways of salvation. They are saying the 
same thing, but, you see, they have quite different 
ways of saying it. I do not mean that Christ always 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING, 77 

used just this form of words ; He did not wish all 
those who had accepted His Gospel to follow Him 
literally in His journeys about Palestine. He bade the 
Gadarene demoniac, whom he had healed, " Go home 
and tell his friends how great things the Lord had 
done for him." To the woman who had been taken 
in sin, He said simply : " Neither do I condemn thee ; 
go and sin no more "; to be sure, that is recorded in 
John. To another woman, who was a sinner, and who 
in penitent love, had " washed His feet with tears, and 
wiped them with the hairs of her head/' He said : 
" Thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace," — though 
some of these could hardly be called inquirers, for 
they had already found peace in believing. But cer- 
tainly, if we were required to state our Lord's usual 
answer to those who asked what He would have them 
do, it must be in these words, " Follow me." That 
phrase covers most perfectly what was then under- 
stood by Christian discipleship. 

Now, if any of you, wishing that you knew how to 
become Christians, have failed to get much light from 
Paul's phrase, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," let 
me offer you Christ's own phrase, " Follow." And 
it may be that even some of us who already cherish 
hope in Christ, who have cherished it for years, per- 
haps, will do well to place ourselves beside the new- 
est inquirers in this study. For, " to believe " — that 
command is so intangible, so hard to grasp or define, 



yS FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 

so hard to translate into actual daily steps of Christian 
progress ; but " to follow " — that ought to be a sim- 
pler matter. You have lost your way in a wild region 
of country ; there are steep cliffs falling off on either 
hand, and much of the forest is tangled, impassable 
undergrowth : and the night is coming on : and you 
are becoming very anxious ; when at last a man meets 
you and says that your friends have sent him out to 
look for you : and that he knows every foot of the 
country : and that if you believe in him he will bring 
you shortly to a place of shelter. Believe in him? 
You never saw him before ; you have no guaranty 
that he speaks the truth. How shall you know 
whether you do really believe in him or not ? You are 
conscious of grave doubts on the subject. And what 
has believing a man to do with getting clear of the 
forest ? And at last he says : " Well, how long do 
you expect to keep me waiting? — we have not much 
daylight to spare." And you answer : " Why, really, 
sir, you seem very kind ; but I do not see how I am 
to find out whether I do believe in you or not/' 
" Will you come along with me?" he breaks in. 
" Why, yes," you say ; " I will go with you. I have no 
other hope of finding my way." " Well," he says, 
" that is all the believing I care about. Come on." 
And off you start ; and in an hour or so he brings you 
safely to your friends. You see it is still the command 
of faith ; but put now into its simplest, most practi- 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. yg 

cal form : " Follow me ; come on with me, and I will 
bring your soul out of trouble." 

Every one of those earliest disciples who honestly 
followed Jesus, believed in Him, else they would not 
have forsaken all to follow Him ; but I suppose any 
of them would have found it hard to analyze their 
faith. " Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two 
brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, 
casting a net into the sea, for they were fishers. And 
He saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you 
fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets 
and followed Him." I fancy they would have found 
it impossible to account for the confidence in this 
man which made them willing to forsake their nets 
for Him. He seemed to them worth more than the 
nets ; He seemed worth following ; perhaps that 
would have been as much as they could say about 
it. And yet that proved itself to be a saving faith. 

We now believe in Christ as our crucified and 
risen Redeemer ; we believe He gave His life to 
redeem us from the curse of the law. Had those 
men any such understanding of the matter? Pos- 
sibly : but at best it must have been very indis- 
tinct. They knew the Scriptures of the Old Tes- 
tament. They had read in Isaiah of that One who 
was wounded for our transgressions, brought as a 
lamb to the slaughter; and they had heard John the 
Baptist say of Jesus : " Behold the Lamb of God." 



8o FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 



We may believe, we must believe, that they had 
some vague sense that this Jesus was offering to take 
from their shoulders the burden of their sin. They 
could feel the power of His sympathy with them ; 
and that is really the beginning of redemption. 
They did feel in Him one who could suffer with 
them in their sin and need ; and that is the next 
thing to suffering for them. When they saw Jesus 
healing the sick, we read that the words of ancient 
prophecy naturally came back to their minds : " Him- 
self took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." 
That woman who was a sinner, and who, as He re- 
clined at the feast, ventured to come into the dining- 
room from behind to anoint and kiss His feet ; we 
can see in such actions something more than the 
mere joy of forgiveness; there was also the deep 
gratitude toward One who had brought forgiveness 
to her, who had freely taken her sin and carried it 
away. 

So we must believe that when sinful men and 
women were drawn to Christ, and were made will- 
ing to forsake all and follow Him, they had in 
their hearts something of what we mean when we 
talk about faith in Christ's redemption. But surely 
that faith was very indistinct ; they could not have 
expressed it ; all that they could say, in proof of 
their discipleship, was, " Lord, we have forsaken all 
and followed Thee." At that time of great falling 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. Si 



away, as John tells us, when many went back and 
walked no more with Him, and Jesus said unto the 
twelve, "Will ye also go away?" Peters answer 
was not : " We believe that Thou hast offered to die 
for us; therefore we cannot go"; but merely, "Lord, 
to whom shall we go ? we believe that Thou art the 
Christ." They were still well content to follow Him, 
to stay with Him ; and that was evidence enough of 
faith. 

It is very interesting to see how almost the clear- 
est lesson that Christ ever did teach in those days 
about His own atoning death, was taught by means 
of this same old habit of simple following, which He 
had so long been impressing upon His disciples. 
"Ye must not be ambitious," He was saying; "ye 
must not seek your own gain and fame ; he that will 
be great among you, let him be your servant. And 
why ? because in so doing you will still be only fol- 
lowing me ; ' for the Son of man came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life 
a ransom for many' " (Matt. xx. 28). Thus it was 
through following Jesus, at first with an almost un- 
reasoning affection and allegiance, that those men 
had been led up toward this clearer faith in His divine 
nature and His sacrificial death. But from the first 
He acknowledged them for disciples : the following 
was the only test of faith that He Himself required. 

Now, my friends, are we not encouraged still to 

4* 



82 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 



employ this same simple test? Jesus Christ no 
longer appears among us in bodily form, walking the 
streets of our city : but surely this following Him 
may still be a practical and definite matter. He 
Himself sometimes interpreted the phrase by other 
phrases : " Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine 
and doeth them, buildeth his house on the rock." 
" He that hath my commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that Ioveth me." 

Many of us, to-day, stand in the position of those 
earliest hearers, rather than the position of Paul : we 
are not brought for the first time in mature life to 
perceive the majesty of Christ's character and teach- 
ing : but we have long looked upon Him as the Sav- 
iour — the Saviour of others, of our parents, of our 
teachers, of our friends. Through them we have had 
some sort of acquaintance with Him, enough to know 
whether He seems trustworthy or not. But for our- 
selves we have not known how to believe : we have 
stood still for a long time wondering what it is to be- 
lieve, as a Christian. Now, why should we not let 
Christ Himself propose the question to us in His own 
way : " Have you confidence enough in me to follow 
me? If so, come on." That, is faith enough to start 
with. Why, if we could say nothing more than those 
words of Peter : " Lord, to whom else should we go ? " 
or, as the man lost in the wood might say to the 
guide : " Yes, I will go with you, for I certainly shall 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 83 

not find the way out by myself"; I believe that the 
Lord will accept even so dubious a trust as that : for 
the test question is not, how hearty your faith may 
be ; but, does it make you follow ? 

For instance, a boy wants to be a Christian, but 
thinks that to be a Christian might cost him his 
place in business ; for his employer expects him to 
break the Sabbath, or sell liquor, or do something 
else that he does not believe Christ would wish him 
to do : but after a struggle he simply makes up his 
mind to please Christ in the matter, and let Christ 
look after the consequences. Now, I am surer that 
that boy believes in Christ, than if he could repeat, 
word for word, all that all the Confessions say about 
justification by faith. He believes in Christ enough 
to follow Him : that is the test. The following is 
the practical, visible matter. 

Or an ambitious and successful man of business 
suspects that if he should become a Christian it 
might be his duty to enter the Christian ministry, 
perhaps to go on some foreign mission : and he does 
not wish to do this at all. But at last he makes up 
his mind : " Well ; I do believe that the Lord knows 
what is best for me after all: and if He should make 
it clear that I ought to go to the ends of the earth, I 
will go." That decision is faith ; none would be will- 
ing to let the Lord lead him unless he had some con- 
fidence in the Lord. I have been told of an actual 



84 FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 

case where a man's conversion did rest upon this 
question, Was he willing to go as a foreign mission- 
ary? His consent to go to teach the heathen was 
his coming to Christ: it was all one step. 

Or another young man, or woman, suspects that to 
be a Christian would mean the giving up of many 
pleasant associations and amusements. He is not 
sure : he has not been altogether persuaded that 
these things were wrong, but he has a suspicion that 
if he should let the Lord take the entire lead of his 
life, the Lord would say : " Not there, or there, or 
there : your way lies here." Well, will he take the 
risk ? Has he confidence enough in Christ, to let 
Christ decide these questions for him ? 

Or there may be some positive burden to take up, 
like open confession : there are some in this room, I 
have no doubt, who feel vaguely that they ought to 
confess Jesus Christ ; or at least that they would 
have to confess Him if they should ever be thorough- 
going Christians. But they shrink from that one 
thing with great aversion. And they have been try- 
ing for years to find peace in believing some other 
way. My friends, if you feel Christ leading you up 
toward this cross, I urge you, in God's name, to fol- 
low Him to just that point. Say to Him honestly, 
" Lord, whatever word of confession Thou hast for 
me to speak, I will speak it." That for you will be 
believing in Him. 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 85 

Ah, if any one can come into that habit of follow- 
ing Christ, that is, of committing our way to Him, 
and doing as well as we can each day those things 
which we believe will please Him, I do not think he 
will be troubled very long to know what it means to 
believe in Christ. Believe in Him ? Why, I follow 
Him, because I do believe in Him. Believe in His 
redemption ? Yes : for He has led me by paths of 
humiliation and conscious unworthiness, and contri- 
tion and self-sacrifice, up toward that cross on which 
He, my leader, offered His life a ransom for many. 
Believe in the forgiveness of sins ? Yes : for this 
strengthening desire in my heart to please Him, what 
is it but love ? and as I search into the grounds of 
this love, what do I find but that I have been for- 
given much ; my faith has saved me. All the doc- 
trines of the apostle Paul are wrapped up in every 
Christian's faith ; and will unfold, one after another, 
before His sight. But the faith is there, the principle 
of the new life is there, so soon as he will say : " Lead 
on, Lord, I follow "; or like that little child of olden 
times, " Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth." 

" Follow me." Ah, my friends, why not ? To 
whom else will you go ; who else has words of eternal 
life, and divine wisdom, and righteousness? Why 
should we hesitate, any of us, to commit our way unto 
the Lord : the Lord who gave His life that He might 
make that way for each of us a way of salvation ? 



86 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 



Why, when we think how hard it is to find our own 
way, even over the smoothest country ; how hard it 
is to distinguish the path of safety and usefulness 
and honor ; how large a proportion of hopeful busi- 
ness men come to bankruptcy, and no small propor- 
tion to disgrace and crime : and when we think of 
those many questions which seem to grow more and 
more involved every day, of social customs, and poli- 
tics, and temperance, and labor reform ; through which 
by some means we are to thread our way toward true 
success : is it any hard command that He who has so 
often proved Himself worthy of men's trust, stands 
before us and says : " Follow me. Commit your life 
prayerfully to my keeping. Make it your custom day 
by day to do faithfully what you think I would have 
you do ; and I will care for the results" ? 

Let me give my testimony that to do this thing 
takes a great load off one's shoulders. When one is 
expected not only to pick his own way, but to lead 
others ; to counsel and direct them in these hard 
questions of religious doctrine, and moral and social 
custom ; and when conscious of his own ignorance, it 
often seems like the blind trying to lead the blind — 
and often he feels that he can never open his mouth 
again to offer his counsel — then to reflect : " But this 
is not my counsel ; I am trying to repeat the words 
w r hich my Leader has given me to speak ; to show 
others the few things He has shown me ; and I may 



FOLLOWING IS BELIEVING. 87 

leave the end of the journey for all of us to Him." 
I can assure you, my friends, that such believing in 
Christ becomes a very precious thing, a very practical 
help, for undertaking the hardest duties of life. And 
for myself, as I am thrown back more and more upon 
this habit of following, I seem to come a little nearer 
also to that mystery of the cross where He suffered 
for us, where the Lord laid upon Him the iniquities 
of us all. And I can say, "The life which I now 
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, 
who loved me and gave Himself for me." If any of 
you have not been able to enter that pathway of 
faith by Paul's gate of doctrine — the great doctrine 
of atonement, I urge you to enter by this gate of 
simple obeying — the gate which Jesus has left open 
for every troubled seeker. " Have you confidence 
enough," He asks, " in my wisdom and love, to follow 
me ? If so, come on. Those who will follow me 
whithersoever I lead them are the believers in me." 



VI. 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

'And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias, 
coming i?i, a7id putting his hand on him, that 
he might receive his sight." — ACTS ix. 12. 

It is a fact of common observation in the natural 
world that life springs from life. Some years ago, 
it is true, the fact was disputed. A few scientists 
claimed to have witnessed cases of spontaneous gen- 
eration, as they called it — inorganic matter coming 
to life without contact with previous life. But more 
careful experiments have proved them in error. What 
they supposed to be inorganic matter really had the 
germs of life already in it. So now, I believe, intel- 
ligent men of science agree that the common opinion 
on this question has been correct. So far as we can 
observe, at least, all life, animal or vegetable, springs 
from previous life. Of course, if one turns his thoughts 
back far enough, he must come to some starting-point : 
for it is clear that our world, in its present habitable 
condition, has not been eternal; but that starting-* 
point was, as we believe, God's own act of Creation. 

Looking from my window I see a tree just putting 

forth its leaves or its fruit. In that marvellous pro- 

(88) 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 89 

cess I see the present action of God's power ; but in 
it I see also an event which finds a place in the en- 
tire vegetable history of the world. This tree, now 
blooming or bearing, carries back my thoughts by an 
unbroken line of ancestry to that third period of the 
creation when God said : " Let the earth bring forth 
the tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is 
in itself . . . and it was so." So both agencies are 
needed — God's present quickening power, and also 
the impetus of previous tree-life, to make this tree 
put forth leaves and bear fruit before my eyes. 

Now, both experience and Scripture teach us that 
the laws of spiritual life show many close resem- 
blances to the laws of physical life : so it is in this 
particular. Whenever a man is born anew into the 
kingdom of God, we recognize first the gracious work 
of God's Spirit in his soul. But in general we must 
recognize, also, the contact between this new life and 
that life which already existed in the world. This 
new birth is an event in that long spiritual history of 
our race which reaches back through saints and fa- 
thers and apostles to the very earliest of those men 
who have walked with God. 

In general, I say, we can recognize this contact ; 
but sometimes it may seem as if we had come upon 
exceptions — sinners who have been converted to God 
by the direct action of His creative Spirit, without 
any contact with other believing men. A most re- 



go THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

markable case in point is that of the apostle Paul : a 
disbeliever in Jesus Christ, travelling with other dis- 
believers, breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
against the Church of Christ, afar from any Christian 
influence, suddenly struck to the earth by a light 
from heaven, and converted by one word from Christ 
Himself. 

We might say that this was a transaction with 
which other Christian men had nothing whatever to 
do. So far as this man was concerned, the whole 
world might have been dead in its sins, possessing no 
germ of spiritual life ; for God Himself, without any 
human co-operation, took this unbeliever and made 
him a Christian. Yes, we might say all this ; but we 
should then be overlooking a very important part of 
the narrative. Not to speak of the words of those 
Christian martyrs whom Paul himself had been per- 
secuting: words which had come to him already as 
goads, against which he found it hard to kick ; and 
the divine truth of which was now flashed into his 
soul by this light from heaven : not to speak of those, 
there was needed other human co-operation with 
God before this new life and light in this man's soul 
should be complete. He had been arrested on his 
way to Damascus — converted, if you please — while 
far from any helpful Christian influence ; but we 
can hardly say that as yet he had been born into 
the light and joy of Christian faith ; for all that the 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. gl 

Scripture tells us is that " He was three days without 
sight, and neither did eat nor drink." The old life of 
disobedience had been suddenly checked ; but those 
three days seem more like stupor than like the be- 
ginning of new life. Then at length, under God's 
direction, the disorganized material of Saul's soul was 
touched by the spiritual life of a living Christian ; and 
at once he received his sight and was filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and was baptized and began to preach 
Christ. This latter part of his conversion is what I have 
offered for your study in the words of our text. 

The Lord spoke to Ananias about Saul, and said : 
" He hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias 
coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might 
receive his sight." "A man coming in and putting 
his hand on him." 

The touch of a living man's hand needed to com- 
plete the work of God's Spirit in Saul's heart. 

I. We can multiply similar instances from the Bible. 
In the slumbers of the night God sends a vision to 
some heathen king, Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar; a 
direct revelation, we might think, from God Himself 
to one who hitherto had not known Him. But no ; 
this proves not to be as yet a revelation, an illumina- 
tion ; but merely, if we might say so, a making the 
darkness visible. The dream can arouse the king's 
curiosity, but cannot gratify it. A believing man 
must be found to give interpretation to the dream ; a 



9 2 THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

Joseph, a Daniel, some man in whom is the Spirit 
of the holy God; his human words added to the 
vision from heaven make known God's will to the 
heathen. The youth David is destined by God to be 
the great man of his age ; greatest in action, greatest 
in word, and what precious revelations were granted 
him from heaven ; his nature seemed like a well-tuned 
harp, responsive to every breath of the Divine Spirit. 
The holy Church throughout all the world still listens 
for the echoes of his heavenly music. Yet David must 
first be set apart for his work as psalmist and king by 
the touch of a holy man. Samuel, the prophet, must 
anoint the lad with oil, and then the Spirit of the 
Lord comes upon him. 

And Samuel himself, how did he become a prophet ? 
How did the spiritual life begin with him? We go 
back to the time of his childhood, and find it a period 
of sad religious declension in Israel : " The word of 
the Lord was precious : there was no open vision." 
And the word of the Lord came to this child, calling 
him by name ; once, twice, three times, " Samuel." 
But he did not know the voice of the Lord ; he could 
not receive the communication until aged Eli, the 
priest, interpreted the word to him. The new prophet 
was fully born at that moment when Eli taught him 
to say, " Speak, Lord : for Thy servant heareth." 

Or we may carry our thoughts back to the earlier 
and still greater prophet, Moses ; a man with whom 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 93 

true religion seems to have been born again in a dead 
world. Alone in the desert, by the burning bush, he 
received his revelation, and then came and declared it 
to the people ; a man with whom God talked face to 
face ; as the scientists would say, a case of spontane- 
ous generation in spiritual things. But read the story 
more carefully. Had this man's faith in God no vital 
connection with the faith of God's people before Him? 
Why, he drew in his faith and knowledge of the true 
God with his mother's milk. " By faith Moses, when 
he was born, was hid three months of his par- 
ents ; by faith, when he was come of years, he refused 
to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." This 
Moses was already a veteran in the true faith, before 
ever he received that revelation by the burning bush. 
And it is a most interesting circumstance that the 
crowning glory even of that revelation had been 
already anticipated for Moses in the earliest and dear- 
est word that his childish lips had learned to speak. 
That God's highest name was Jehovah, that was the 
revelation : and the name of Moses' own mother was 
Jochebed, " Jehovah, my glory." 

So even here we have not found a man starting out 
upon his religious life by a mere impulse from within 
or from above without help from other believers ; there 
had been the human touch of faith, the blessed influ- 
ence of a faithful home. 

But suppose we turn back further still, to him who 



94 



THE HAXD OF ANANIAS. 



seems to stand at the very beginning of the world's 
religious history, Abraham, the father of the faithful. 

This, we think, must be the last step that we shall 
need to take. We reach here an independent birth 
of true religion in the world : no, we do not ; it 
proves as hard to find such a beginning of spiritual 
life as it was to find a beginning of physical life. For 
this Abraham, returning from a successful battle, is 
met by a king, Melchizedek, priest of the most high 
God, who blessed him, and received tithes from him. 
Still another step : and if we cannot go yet further, 
and trace the spiritual origin of Melchizedek, it is 
because history gives no account of his origin, spirit- 
ual or physical. The Scripture itself dwells upon the 
peculiar mystery surrounding that man, in that he 
stands before us without father, without mother, with- 
out genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor 
end of life. In other words, we have reached in 
him the farthest limits of historical knowledge : but 
always, so far as we can see anything, we see the 
touch of some believing man co-operating with the 
revelation from heaven before the new spiritual life 
in any soul is thoroughly started. 

I need hardly remind you of instances in the 
New Testament. Peter interpreting to Cornelius his 
vision. Paul declaring to the Athenians the God 
whom they ignorantly worshipped. The Baptist 
directing Andrew and John to Jesus ; Andrew bring- 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. g$ 

ing Peter; and John, James; and Philip, Nathanael. 
Thus, even in the days of our Lord's flesh, when He 
Himself still spoke with human voice, and touched 
with human hand, He began to avail Himself of the 
co-operation of believers in order to win new be- 
lievers. Thus the entire Scriptures sustain the prin- 
ciple which we have discovered in the conversion of 
Paul. The touch of Ananias must be added to the 
vision from heaven before this new Christian is ready 
to go forward believing, rejoicing. 

II. Is not this Scriptural principle sustained by 
common Christian experience ? 

Beyond the borders of Christendom on every side 
are spread out the vast territories of heathenism. 
How are those people to be enlightened and con- 
verted ? For a long time Christians seem to have 
believed that when God wished the heathen con- 
verted He would convert them by some new opera- 
tion of His Spirit. A hundred years ago, Wm. 
Carey's missionary proposals were met by just this 
answer. It was thought presumptuous for men to 
undertake a work which God had left alone. " Bro- 
ther Carey," one of the older ministers exclaimed : 
"when God wants the heathen converted He will 
convert them without help from you and me." In 
some way God was to send out His Spirit, and do 
the work. But, my friends, do you suppose God has 
not always been sending out His Spirit to heathen 



g6 THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

lands? Are we not sure that the same God who 
gave visions to Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar has 
been ready to enlighten and bless the heathen of 
every age? He has not overlooked one of them: 
not a single heart in the darkest regions of Africa, 
or the most crowded provinces of Asia, or the vast 
forests and prairies of America, at which this Great 
Spirit has not knocked for admission. And far be it 
from me to say that He has not sometimes found 
admission into such hearts, bringing with Him the 
germs of true spiritual life. 

But they remain germs merely : they do not de- 
velop into the abundant fruitage of Christian char- 
acter and faith. And why not ? Through any lack 
of God's spiritual power? No : for lack of the other 
agency which must work with God in the producing 
of life. The heathen world has been waiting for a 
grasp of the hand from the Christian Church. That 
vast mass of inorganic soul-material ready to live, 
must be everywhere touched by life : and then we 
shall find that the quickening power of God is still 
ready to work. We shall find it ; we do find it. 
" Each breeze that sweeps the ocean brings tidings 
from afar," from the remotest islands, and the dark- 
est continents, of the continued spreading of life. 
Wherever Ananias is found ready to put his hands on 
Saul, there blind Saul is found quickly receiving his 
sight. 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 97 

III. The same principle we find operating in our 
own neighborhood, among persons of our own ac- 
quaintance. Wherever new spiritual life appears, 
two agencies seem still to have been working to- 
gether: the living power of God's Spirit, and also 
the influence of some other Christian life. 

i. God is at all times directly influencing the hearts 
of men, both by His providences, as we can see ; and 
by His Spirit, as we believe. By His providences, 
sometimes by sorrow, by joy ; by failure, by success ; 
by loneliness, by the blessings of society, God pre- 
pares men to believe in Him, and find their joy in 
Him. And these providences are accompanied every- 
where by a sort of undeveloped religious experience, 
by inner impulses of rebuke, and remorse, and spirit- 
ual hunger, and encouragement : all this perhaps 
while as yet the man has not been brought into any 
vital connection with Christians or Christianity. The 
Bible, though always within his reach, has been al- 
ways a sealed book. But now at last by some means 
the seals are broken. This treasure-house of human 
testimony to divine grace is thrown open to him. 
And the words of these ancient men, David, and 
John, and Paul, co-operating with the message from 
God which he himself had heard, but not understood, 
arouse the new life of faith and obedience in his soul. 
As he looks back, he can now see how God had long 
been preparing him for this new birth. But in spite 
5 



98 THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

of the preparation he remained in darkness and spirit- 
ual stupor until these ancient messengers of God 
came and laid their hands upon him, and gave him 
sight. 

2. But you would all feel that I have not here de- 
scribed the usual process of conversion. Here and 
there perhaps a man is so grasped by the testimonies 
of this ancient book, that he needs no further human 
encouragement to enter the new life. But most of 
us want the grasp of a different sort of hand. The 
Scripture, at least until we have enjoyed long ac- 
quaintance with it, seems so impersonal and distant. 
The human element seems to us so largely to have 
dried out of it. Even Peter declared pathetically 
centuries ago, that " the Patriarch David was both 
dead and buried." And now Peter himself also both 
dead and buried. And any grasp of the hand that 
those dead men could give, would not seem fitted to 
strengthen us much in our perplexity and darkness. 
Thus it often seems that the force of human testi- 
mony has faded out of this book : and we have here 
nothing left but a message from God, which itself 
needs explanation and confirmation before we men 
can be enlightened by it. You have not known 
many instances where any one was converted to the 
Christian life by mere solitary study of the Scriptures? 
Have you known many instances where persons have 
been converted to the Christian life through listening 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. gg 

merely to the public preaching of God's word? No 
doubt there are such instances : there may be many 
of them altogether. But more commonly, I think, 
this public preaching, while it may instruct, and con- 
vince, and convict, so preparing the way for conver- 
sion, or directing the Christian life after conversion, 
yet lacks that living contact which is needed for 
the first producing of life. The preaching comes — 
so far as there is truth in it and power — as the word 
of God, rather than the word of man. The preacher 
cannot, must not, single out his hearers by name, and 
tell them which words he is speaking to each of them. 
Therefore, it seems to me, in most cases, this public 
preaching of the Gospel remains on the divine side of 
the work. It is a part of God's message to the soul of 
the hearer : like the vision from heaven which had been 
granted to Saul. If the work is to be completed, if 
the soul is to be truly born again, the need remains 
that some man come to that single hearer and lay his 
hands upon him ; and then by some means through 
this personal contact of soul with soul the spiritual 
life begins. 

Is it not so ? Even in those services whose special 
aim is the conversion of unbelievers, we do not ex- 
pect, do we, to see the conversion completed satis- 
factorily by the public service ; but we do hope to see 
men there convicted of sin and aroused to a spirit of 
inquiry. On the day of Pentecost Peter spoke with 



100 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 



such convincing power that the multitude were 
pricked in their heart ; and, as a result, they said 
unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, " Men 
and brethren, what shall we do?" The success of 
the public sermon was that it drove the hearers into 
this inquiry-meeting. The public impersonal dis- 
course had come to them as a message from God ; 
now their hearts craved direction and encouragement 
from men ; " Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " 
As a result of this inquiry, some three thousand of 
them gladly received the word and were baptized. 

Ever since, I think, in times of deep conviction, 
when the experiences of the day of Pentecost are at 
all reproduced, it has been found needful to supple- 
ment the public preaching of the truth by some such 
personal questioning and directing, so that each dark- 
ened soul groping for the light may be personally 
touched and helped by some one who can see. This 
has been the case, so far as I know, in all extensive 
and successful evangelistic services. 

But I hasten to say that such extensive evangelistic 
services do not represent the whole work — perhaps 
not always the best work of Christ's Church. It 
should be remembered that the book of Acts, while 
describing thirty years of apostolic labor, records no 
second day of Pentecost. That day, with its notable 
experiences, does not stand as a sample of the meth- 
ods and the success usual in the early Church. More 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 



IOI 



commonly the growth of the Church was such as 
our Lord Himself described in His parables — the 
grain of mustard-seed growing rapidly but imper- 
ceptibly into the tree ; or the grain of corn planted 
and springing up, " first the blade, then the ear, after 
that the full corn in the ear." That day of Pentecost 
was like the wonderful miracle of the loaves; the 
usual growth of the Church has been more like the 
yearly ripening of harvest. 

So let us never imagine that a church of Christ must 
lie stagnant except in times of so-called revival ; or 
that conversions should be looked for only from 
special evangelistic methods. Wherever the Church 
exists, it should be expected to grow ; wherever be- 
lievers come together to hear God's word, and sing, 
and pray, and commemorate Christ's death, they 
should always look for and work for the conversion 
of unbelievers. And so — this is the conclusion that 
we have been approaching — so, even when there are 
no formally appointed meetings for inquiry, this old 
question, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ? " 
ought to be continually asked and answered among 
us. This Word of God, and these public services of 
God's house, are or should be always arousing the 
spirit of inquiry in unbelievers ; and every Sabbath- 
school class, every Christian home, every Christian 
school, every friendship, every acquaintance even, 
between those who know the Lord and those who 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 



know Him not, should give room for this inquiry. 
The responsibility for this personal work rests on all 
true believers in Christ. And in any community 
where Christians all feel this responsibility, and live 
up to it, there it is that souls are continually turned 
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan 
unto God. On the other hand, wherever Christians 
are content to let the Word and Spirit of God do the 
whole work, withholding their own co-operation, of- 
fering no hand of help to those in darkness, there the 
Word of God seems to lose its converting power, and 
we mourn that God has withdrawn His Spirit, and 
are constrained to wait hopelessly until such time as 
He sees fit to revive us again. 

I was greatly impressed not long ago by the re- 
mark of a very little child ; she had been promised a 
bit of ground for a flower-bed whenever the time for 
planting should come ; and some one was speaking 
to her of the " rain which God sends to make things 
grow, and the sunshine, too; for it takes both the 
rain and the sunshine": "Yes," said the little one, 
"and me, too, to put in the seeds." The theology of 
these little children is often the very best. God 
sends the rain and the sunshine, — His Word, which 
like the rain shall not return unto Him void ; and 
the enlightening and life-giving spirit of grace ; but, 
if the garden is to be a success, it takes us too, you 
and me, to put in the seeds. 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. I0 3 

My friends, we who have been made alive in Jesus 
Christ, are we all awake to this responsibility ; are 
we all doing this our share of this work ? I fear we 
sometimes stifle the conviction which forces itself 
into our souls, that this one, or that one, still walking 
in darkness, looks to us for light. The Lord came to 
Ananias in a vision and told him that Saul wanted 
him : He came to Saul also and told him that Ananias 
could help him. We do not talk much about visions 
in these days : but I am sure that still some unseen 
spiritual power often draws men together, the man 
needing to be helped and the man able to help. Let 
us as Christians beware how we resist that drawing. 
We are often loath to go. We think our words will 
be ineffectual ; will be resented, will do more harm 
than good. Ananias was loath to go, struggled against 
his mission : " Lord, I have heard by many of this 
man, how much evil he hath done to Thy saints at 
Jerusalem : and how he hath authority from the chief 
priests to bind all that call on Thy name." He could 
hardly believe that the same divine influence which 
was drawing him to Saul was drawing Saul to him. 
Yet, in spite of doubts and fears, he obeyed the Lord, 
What if he had disobeyed, what if Saul had been left 
in darkness ! Remember this : the same spirit which 
is inclining you to help your friend may incline, 
often has inclined, him to accept help from you. 
And let it not be said that any inquiring Saul has 



T04 THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 

waited in vain for that hand of help which God has 
urged you to reach out to him. 

x\nd just one word as we close, to those who are 
waiting to be helped. Perhaps you might conclude 
from the text that you must continue to wait until 
some Christian offers help to you. It would have 
seemed of little use for blind Saul to start out in that 
strange city seeking for Ananias : he must wait until 
Ananias came to him. But was not the next chapter 
in this book of the Acts written for the very purpose 
of correcting such a false impression ? There also we 
have two men and two visions : one man, Cornelius, 
needing help : and the other man, Peter, able to give 
help : but in that case Cornelius must send to Peter 
before Peter goes to Cornelius. If you want counsel 
and prayer from some Christian, do not wait to see 
whether he will come to you ; but first go to him : 
and be sure that you will get the help. For this 
same spirit which has been urging you to ask, has 
been preparing him to give. 

Ah, my friends, let us not be disobedient to these 
heavenly visions. The great purpose for which we 
are placed side by side in this world seems to be the 
giving and receiving of help ; the giving and receiv- 
ing of this light of life. If you have not been brought 
into the light of Christian faith, God directs you to 
some believer, pastor, teacher, parent, friend, who can 
lay his hand upon you that you may see. When you 



THE HAND OF ANANIAS. 105 

do rejoice in that light, God directs you in turn to 
some one still groping in the darkness, — some one to 
whom, without impoverishing yourself, you can com- 
municate the gift of life that you have received. Be 
not disobedient : go to him, trusting in that divine 
direction, even as Ananias went to Saul, saying: 
" Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared 
unto thee, hath sent me that thou mightest receive 
thy sight." 



5* 



VII. 



AN EASTER SERMON. 

" Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay 
down my life, that I might take it again." — 
John x. 17. 

"I AM the good shepherd/' Christ said, "and I lay 
down my life for the sheep." "Therefore," He con- 
tinues, " doth my Father love me." Because Christ 
was the good shepherd of men, therefore He was the 
well-beloved Son of God — because, out of His own 
love for the sheep, He would lay down His life for 
them. But — here this question rises before us — what 
now will become of the helpless sheep? Must not 
the truly good shepherd, whom God could fully ap- 
prove and love, guard His own life for the sake of 
the sheep ? We have read of generals, in a moment 
of reckless daring, throwing away their lives in battle, 
so bringing defeat to their own army. Some of us 
remember how Xenophon describes the senseless self- 
sacrifice of Cyrus at Cunaxa. For the sake of his 
soldiers he ought to have spared his own life, not 
thrown it away. Yet, on the other hand, a com- 
mander who spares himself from personal cowardice 

at once loses, and deserves to lose, all regard from 
106) 



AN EASTER SERMON. i y 

his soldiers. When once it became suspected that 
Louis XIV., the great king, who was shedding his 
subjects' blood in every country of Europe, was him- 
self a coward, his prestige was gone forever. 

Thus it appears that the good commander, so far 
as he himself is concerned, must be ready to lay down 
his life for his troops : but for their sakes must guard 
his life with care — better that hundreds of them be 
sacrificed than that his life be risked. The good shep- 
herd must be willing to lay down his life for the 
sheep ; but for their sakes he must be able and care- 
ful to retain his life, else the helpless flock will be left 
without guard or guide. 

How is Christ the good shepherd of men? Let 
the cross answer, where He laid down His life for 
us. But is that the good shepherd ? What remains 
for us, the helpless flock : our guardian recklessly sac- 
rificed : ourselves scattered abroad as sheep having 
no shepherd? What remains for us? Let this day 
answer, my friends ; this day of the Resurrection. 
Reckless of His own life, our shepherd was not reck- 
less of us. He died for us : He lives for us; He died 
that He might live to care for us. He thus fills per- 
fectly both parts of the shepherd's office, receiving the 
entire approval and love of God, because for our sakes 
He laid down His life that He might take it again. 

I wish to study with you, this morning, the subject 
of self-sacrifice in the light of the resurrection. 



i o8 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



I. Sometimes that subject has been allowed to re- 
main in other imperfect light, or perhaps in no light at 
all ; and studying it there, we easily become involved 
in error. Self-sacrifice, as an unconditional final fact, 
is thought to be man's duty. " Lay down thy life," 
is the command ; " for the sake of what ? " " for the 
sake of laying it down." That is man's virtue, to 
sacrifice himself. Not always in the form of wilful 
suicide ; that would be the logical conclusion ; and 
that conclusion has sometimes been reached, as when 
the Hindoo devotee would cast himself beneath the 
wheels of Juggernaut. More commonly, however, 
divine law, or else some instinct of the soul, teaches 
men that " the Almighty has fixed His canon 'gainst 
self-slaughter." 

But repeatedly, constantly, everywhere, men have 
shown themselves disposed, even when they shrink 
from this logical and tragical conclusion, to take the 
earlier steps of such purposeless and hopeless self- 
sacrifice. Not that they sincerely wish to do this ; 
but they think this the thing to be done. Vice, they 
think, is self-indulgence : virtue is self-denial. That 
is the complete definition. If you would do right, if 
you would please God, if you would make the Father 
love you, deny yourself, sacrifice yourself, lay down 
your life. Here is a life of the body with its activ- 
ities and enjoyments : " lay that down," the ascetic 
says ; " fasting, painful watching, the sacrifice of every 



AN EASTER SERMON. i g 

comfort, that is virtue ; that is what God loves ; mor- 
tify your body." Here is a life of the intellect, with 
its activities and enjoyments, in the domain of litera- 
ture and art and music and science. " Deny yourself 
that," says this voice of supposed duty. " Those pur- 
suits give you keen personal delight; therefore sacri- 
fice them all. To give up what pleases you, is to 
please God." Augustine had been used to delight in 
the eloquence of Cicero. At length he seemed to 
hear a voice telling him that he must give up either 
Cicero or Christ. Lay down the life of your intellect, 
and so please God. 

Here is a life of the affections, with its activities 
and enjoyments : in the home, among one's friends, 
in the social circle where one has been placed. 
Keener enjoyments here than were ever to be found 
in the mere bodily life, or in the mere intellectual. 
What shall be done with this life ? " Lay it down," 
said the ascetic. Banish yourself from that society ; 
break those ties of friendship ; leave forever the 
blessed enclosure of that home ; bury yourself be- 
hind the walls of the convent : that is to please 
God. Thus lay down, so far as you can without 
actual suicide, the whole earthly life ; then will 
God love you. That has been always the impulse 
of what we call asceticism, to lay down life for the 
sake of laying it down ; the same impulse whether it 
appears in an ancient Pharisee, or a mediaeval monk, 



no 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



or a Puritan of later times ; or in any man among us, 
whatever he calls himself, who believes that just to 
sacrifice himself is to please God. It seems as if the 
brow of this precipice lay everywhere, not far from 
the course of our steps. We always shrink from that 
abyss : we hate the thought of sacrifice, we love the 
thought of indulgence : and yet there is a strong im- 
pulse, — at times it has proved itself an uncontrollable 
impulse, — to draw nearer the awful brink, and even 
cast ourselves over it. " Lay down your life, throw 
away your life, and so please God." 

But against this blind impulse of asceticism, reason 
has always been making her voice heard. Life is not 
an evil thing, to be thrown away : it is to be cherished 
rather, and made the most of. Bodily comfort, in- 
tellectual gratification, the enjoyment of home and 
of society, they are good, keep them : so says man's 
common-sense. And so also says the Word of God ; 
" Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be 
refused : if it be received with thanksgiving." Do 
not lay down your life, but make the most of it. 
Common-sense and Scripture seem to be at one 
against this senseless impulse of asceticism, self-de- 
struction. 

II. But must we then renounce forever that noble 
dream of sacrifice ? — for it was a noble dream. That 
old convent was the monument of a sublime fancy 
floating heavenward. The man who has cast himself 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



Ill 



suicidally from the cliff, was half persuaded that he 
should fly. Is there no kind of self-sacrifice left for 
man which sober reason can approve ? Most certainly 
there is. Wherever man lays down his life, not for 
the sake of laying it down, but that he may take it 
again in some higher form, then our reason says that 
he does well. 

Enjoyment is good : but any one in his right mind 
would sacrifice an hour's enjoyment to-day for months 
of enjoyment next year. The young man who wastes 
all his money gambling on the steamer, and so for- 
feits the pleasures of his entire foreign tour, is a fool : 
quite apart from the sin of gambling, we all call him 
a fool. Better the most monotonous week at sea, 
than to lose months of pleasure on shore. 

Again, bodily comfort and bodily development are 
good. But will you grasp these and retain them at 
every cost ? Will you set your heart on this one 
thing ; to have always what you like best to eat, and 
the softest bed on which to sleep ; and the largest 
physical growth ? Any of us would be ashamed to 
confess so ignoble a purpose. Pleasant food and 
comfortable raiment, — I am glad to have them if they 
fall in my way; health, strength, agility, physical 
symmetry; very desirable gifts, if they do not cost 
too much : but you honor the boy who will go hungry 
many days rather than go ignorant all his life ; who 
will sacrifice that perfect exuberance of health which 



112 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



attends a life of leisure in the open air, in order that 
he may exercise and feed his mind. Many of us would 
say, " I should like to have again the bodily strength, 
and the perfectly untroubled health which belonged 
to me ten or fifteen years ago. And I could doubt- 
less have kept them. Perhaps I could even now re- 
gain them. But I would not do it at the cost of this 
higher intellectual life which I have taken up by lay- 
ing them down." Any man would say, whose mind 
has begun to taste life : " Let me stagger now under the 
v/eight which once I could have held at arm's length ; 
let me now pant and gasp at the ascent, up which 
once I would have run at full speed ; let my sight be 
dimmed, and my bodily taste fail ; rather than re- 
linquish this larger activity of the mind, this more 
piercing vision, this more delicious repast." We do 
not despise that bodily health and pleasure, that lower 
life. No ; keep as much of that as may be ; the more 
the better. But cheerfully lay that life down, when so 
you can take up this higher life of the mind. Then 
you have an act of reasonable self-sacrifice; not the 
ascetic's self-destruction. 

Reason itself, without the help of Christianity, leads 
every thoughtful man along that first step from the 
physical to the intellectual ; laying down the one, so 
far as he must, that he may take up the other. 

And our reason also discovers further steps in the 
same progress. 



AN EASTER SERMON. II3 

That first step would have been well illustrated by 
the boy who goes hungry often, and cold, in order 
that he may go to college. But suppose we follow 
that boy further ; and suppose that the bitter experi- 
ence befalls him which is befalling one and another 
every year. He has indulged his intellectual tastes 
just enough to thoroughly arouse them: he has seen 
just enough of literary culture to make a life without 
it seem like the day without the sun: — when his 
father is struck down by illness or death. His 
mother, younger brothers and sisters, left face to face 
with want. He has been able by great self-denial to 
support himself while pursuing his studies : but it 
would be quite impossible to take up any additional 
burden. To continue his studies now would be to 
leave those who are dearest to him in great privation, 
or else dependent upon strangers. I do not think 
that a heavier cross than that is often placed before 
men in this life: but many a young man, whose biog- 
raphy no one thinks of writing, has taken up that 
cross. With an effort, painful as if he were plucking 
out his right eye and casting it from him, he closes 
his books forever: accepts some position where he 
can draw a salary, and thus gives his chosen life for 
those whom he loves. Not only the lower physical 
life ; that were a small matter ; that he had sacrificed 
long ago. He gives now his intellectual life ; lays it 
down for those whom he loves. But has this been 



114 AN EASTER SERMON. 

only a laying down of life? has nothing been taken 
up ? Has that young man's nature been dwarfed or 
mutilated by this sacrifice? Is he not more of a man, 
than if neglecting his family, and going on with his 
studies, he had become another Lord Bacon ? Is there 
not a life of the affections that soars above that of the 
mere intellect ? 

But, if it be so, we have not yet reached the end of 
the course. Taking step after step, we always see 
other steps beyond. The self-sacrifice brings its re- 
ward: what starts as a step down from the present 
possession proves to be a step up to purer and richer 
possessions. Laying down the present life, we take 
another and better life. But is it not true that as 
we advance along this course, the steps become more 
difficult : the larger life restored becomes less tan- 
gible to our common-sense as we advance ? We grow 
conscious of a need that some higher wisdom, some 
divine revelation, guide and support our own rea- 
son. For observe what point we have reached, what 
steps we have taken hitherto. Denying oneself 
an hour's gratification to-day, for the sake of many 
weeks of enjoyment just ahead. Any one but a fool 
sees the wisdom of that self-sacrifice. Denying one- 
self needless indulgence of the body in order to grati- 
fy and develop the mind : — most of us would cheer- 
fully undergo more or less of that self-sacrifice. 

Denying the mind for the sake of the heart ; giv- 



AN EASTER SERMON. Il5 

ing up the life of culture and intellectual delight for 
the sake of mother and brothers and sisters. Does 
the man get back more than he gives away? We are 
not quite so sure about it. We think that he does. 
In our more exalted moments, perhaps, we are sure 
that he does ; we then see that he does. Yet there 
is something to be said on the other side. It is often 
hard both for him and for others not to regret the 
sacrifice. A very precious part of him, he has buried ; 
and we are moved to weep beside the tomb. The 
man who could have revelled among the intellectual 
treasures of the ages, and perhaps by his own genius 
have added to them, to wear out his days behind the 
dusty counter or adding endless columns of stupid 
figures ; ah, the deed was noble, but it was very sad. 
And yet the responsive love of those for whom he 
laid the life down, is precious consolation to him. 

But now let us take another step. Suppose this 
man, whose course we are watching, learns that the 
wealth by which he has comfortably supported his fam- 
ily belongs to others ; to some soulless corporation, 
we will say. He alone possesses the evidence of title ; 
the secret is his. To keep it will injure no one ; what 
are these few thousands to the great bank or railroad ? 
To reveal the secret will plunge those nearest him 
into want, perhaps almost into disgrace. The step 
is harder than death. And yet there is a compulsion 
which drives the man to make that secret known. 



n6 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



He lays down his life once more ; the life of the 
body, and of the intellect, and of the affections, all 
have now been sacrificed. 

And what remains ? Is there anything : has he 
thrown his life away? Has he cast himself over the 
cliff ? Or has he still taken up again a larger life ; 
one controlled by motives higher even than the most 
sacred natural affections, and capable of affording de- 
lights purer than those of the purest human love ? 
Which is it ? This sacrifice of all that one loves most 
for a thought, a fancy, an abstract notion of duty and 
honor ; — is it a fruitless sacrifice, or has the man still 
taken up more than he has laid down ? How hard 
it is to answer as our hearts impel us to answer ! We 
feel that he has done nobly ; we wish to think that 
he has done wisely ; but what precious things he has 
thrown away, and how shadowy is all that he has 
taken back ! Something it is, if indeed it be any- 
thing, that cannot be discerned by this eye of sense, 
or even by this eye of the understanding ; cannot be 
weighed in the scale of our reasonable calculation. 

And why should we stop with the sacrifice of things 
as dear as life ? The final step in this progress that 
we have been tracing, is often the sacrifice of life 
itself ; not laying it down for the mere sake of laying 
it down, like the ascetic, and yet laying it down for 
reasons whose value cannot be estimated in any 
money- exchange of the world. Why should the 



AN EASTER SERMON. ny 

soldier cast away his life in battle ? " Honor pricks 
him on." Yes, but the man of mere fleshly sense 
replies, " Can honor set to an arm ? No. Or take 
away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no 
skill in surgery then? No. What is honor? A 
word : air. Who hath it ? He that died o' Wednes- 
day. Doth he feel it ? No. Doth he hear it ? No. 
Is it insensible then ? Yea, to the dead ; therefore 
I'll none of it." And who can show that old Fal- 
staff did not reach a wise conclusion ? 

Here we have a man, Polycarp, or Cyprian, or Sir 
Thomas More, it may be, or Hugh Latimer, who has 
offered him this simple choice, to suffer death like a 
felon, or else to renounce the faith which he has pro- 
fessed. He chooses the death. He lays down his life 
for a word, a creed, a sacrament ; something as light 
as air. At once follows the pain of martyrdom, and 
then he is gone, vanished like smoke ; perhaps van- 
ished in smoke. And what shall we say of his sacrifice ? 
Noble, does your heart tell you that it is ? Godlike ; 
something to be reverently commemorated by latest 
generations ? Yet according to any reasonable cal- 
culation it is unutterably sad. It goes to prove that 
every noble life is tragic. Just as the life becomes 
worthy of reverent commemoration it is extinguished, 
and the grave proves to be the goal of every human 
virtue. 

When man's life becomes worth the most, then 



u8 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



he lays it down and takes nothing again. That is 
the history of human life as read by man's unaided 
reason. All the world in its pursuit of holiness must 
follow the course which the Christian Church has been 
following in thought these few days past. So soon 
as we find our perfect man, one altogether worthy of 
our love and of God's love ; one strong enough in 
virtue to redeem his people ; not a thief who comes 
to kill and destroy ; not a hireling who runs at the 
approach of danger ; but the good shepherd who 
loves the sheep, and guides them and guards them : — 
so soon as we find this perfect Son of man, and begin 
to follow Him, where does He lead us? — why, to the 
hill of Calvary ; ' it is finished ' on the cross, that per- 
fect life. And then the world's best hope lies buried in 
the sepulchre. 

Ah, there may be laughter and good cheer on the 
lower plane of eating and drinking ; but so soon as a 
man starts upward, following the impulses of his 
deepest nature, successively laying down the lower 
life to take again the higher, how surely he comes at 
last into these regions of tragedy. The last act re- 
quired of him is a laying down, with no taking again. 
The shepherd is smitten, " and the sheep of the flock 
are scattered abroad." This is the end of the ideal 
and perfect human life ; " They take Him down from 
the cross and lay Him in the sepulchre." 

IV. But, my friends, is that the end ? Is the tomb 



AN EASTER SERMON. ug 

the last chapter of this history? The eye of sense an- 
swers, "Yes"; the faithless reason answers, "Yes." 
But there has always been a deeper reason in man 
which could not rest content with that answer; and 
there is now in the world a faith which meets that an- 
swer with a confident denial. No, no, no; that tomb 
is not the final chapter of the book. The last step re- 
quired of exalted humanity, the last earthly step of 
Jesus Christ was in no way different from the preced- 
ing steps, except that it carried Him up so far that 
now our eyes can no longer follow. Still, as before, 
He has laid down His life that He might take it again. 
And this is the concluding chapter, not the final lay- 
ing down, but the taking it again for ever and ever. 

Yes, there are in this world of sorrow and death 
millions of believers who have learned that blessed 
chapter by heart. Where can you go to-day in all the 
world and not hear the sweet echo of its sentences ? 
" Very early in the morning, the first day of the week, 
they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun." 
Why, for once nature itself seems to have caught the 
story of redemption. The sun was setting when they 
placed Him in the sepulchre. The sun is rising now. 
" And they entered in, and found not the body of the 
Lord Jesus." Yes ; this whole earth is but a burying- 
place. " The hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, 
the vales stretching in pensive quietness between — 
and poured around all, old ocean's gray and melan- 



120 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



choly waste, are but the solemn decorations all of the 
great tomb of man." Ah, but the tomb is, or shall 
be, empty; it is not a final resting-place, it is a thor- 
oughfare. The Lord stepped into it, that He might 
step out from it. " Why seek ye the living among 
the dead? He is not here, but is risen. Remember 
how He spake unto you." Yes, the mystery of the 
cross has now been illumined by the rising of that 
Easter sun. " He laid down His life that He might 
take it again." 

Ah, my friends, that heavenly light which has once 
shone into our world must never more be extinguished. 
It must never fail us. It is needed not only to die by 
courageously, but to live by courageously; not only 
for that last laying down of the whole earthly life, but 
for each earlier laying down of life that God requires. 
When one must sacrifice the body for the mind, let 
him see himself a step nearer those things which are 
unseen and eternal ; the gain that has come to him in 
the enlarging of this higher intellectual nature cannot 
be measured by any scale of years ; the treasures of 
knowledge should be estimated in the light of eternity. 
And even the body that was sacrificed, — is there not 
a spiritual body ? 

When one has sacrificed the life of his mind for 
the life of his heart ; has cast away those treasures 
of knowledge, buried that intellectual faculty, shall 
we mourn as those without hope beside the tomb 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



121 



where so precious a part of him lies buried ? Not 
if we believe the story of this Easter day. Whatever 
good thing he has laid down in the way of Christian 
duty, of devoted love, that good thing he shall take 
again. One of these days you will go to the tomb 
where that man buried his intellectual faculty and find 
it empty. That which was buried has risen again. 
Why, even in this short earthly course how often it 
happens that he who loses his intellectual life for 
Christ's sake, finds it. And if not so here, will there 
be no leisure for study in God's higher university? 

Or those still more bitter sacrifices : when treas- 
ures of love dearer than life, and often life itself, are 
required, — and all for a word, a thought, a notion of 
honor, or integrity, or truth : oh, seek not the living 
among the dead. Such an act of sacrifice we feel to 
be almost unearthly : but a very little film of air sep- 
arates it from the darkness and cold that lie beyond. 
Darkness ? We see to-day that it is heaven's own 
light that lies beyond, and shines back upon us 
through every such act of Christian devotion ; con- 
vincing us that the nearer any disciple comes to his 
Master's cross, the nearer he is to the eternal life, and 
the infinite joy which are at God's right hand. The 
more devotedly, the more recklessly any man lays 
down his life, — if it be for Christ's sake, in the doing 
of Christ's work, — the more surely and abundantly 

he takes it again. That is the light which Easter 
6 



1 12 



AN EASTER SERMON. 



sheds on the whole region of Christian sacrifice. Let 
us come into that light. Let us look through that 
empty tomb. Let us hear that reverberated sentence 
of glad tidings, " The Lord is risen ; the Lord is risen 
indeed." Let us be with the disciples when Jesus 
Himself stands in the midst of them, and says unto 
them, " Peace be unto you." 

Ah, but have we any right in that company? Have 
we followed Him in His humiliation ? have we stood 
beside the cross? Only the Lord's disciples saw Him 
risen. Easter has no good tidings for those who will 
not suffer with Christ : who always hold fast the 
lower life ; who love the flesh more than the mind ; 
or the mind more than the heart ; or the natural 
affection more than the voice of conscience, self more 
than Christ. Oh, my friends, be sure that you have 
a right to the rejoicings of this day. For it says 
to us, " Whosoever will save his life, shall lose it ; and 
whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it." 



VIII. 

THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 



"And so it is written, The first man Adam was 
made a living sotd ; the last Adam was made 
a quickening spirit." — I COR. xv. 45. 

WHAT was the purpose of Christ's coming to the 
earth ? Why was the Word of God made flesh ? 
That is a question which we cannot well help ask- 
ing, — if we believe that Christ ever came to the earth, 
incarnate. For our minds are so made that we can- 
not be long satisfied without knowing the purpose of 
things. If any important deed has been done, which 
interests us much, we either think that we know, or 
else we ask, why it was done. But to the Christian 
this incarnation of Christ is the most important, and 
most interesting of all deeds or events : that the Son 
of God should humble Himself to become man, and 
be made flesh. Why did He do it ? We cannot rest 
without some answer. 

Now, a familiar answer to this question, — and a 
Scriptural answer, so far as it goes, — is that Christ 
came to earth to save men from their sins. The pur- 
pose of the incarnation is redemption. A very true 

answer, true to the spirit and to the substance of the 

(123) 



124 THE FI &ST ADAM AND THE LAST. 

Gospel, — true, i. e., unless it be taken for the whole 
answer ; then, I think, it may not be so true. Not 
long ago I heard an able man laying it down as a sort 
of axiom to build up his arguments upon, that Christ 
came just to undo the damage of Adam's sin ; i. e., 
to put man back where he was before the Fall. Now, 
that way of stating the case, I think, is neither true 
nor Scriptural : and many practical inferences that 
have been drawn from it are very far from true. 

Here is a man, we will say, starting out on a long 
journey. The first part of the path he knows, and by 
proper care could travel over safely. The last part is 
unknown to him ; and for that a guide must be pro- 
vided. But the traveller has hardly started on the 
earlier, easier part of the path, when he begins to 
grow careless or wilful, and so wandering from it, 
loses himself hopelessly among the tangled forests. 

The guide comes to meet him according to appoint- 
ment, but does not find him ; learns then of his wan- 
derings, traces them out, discovers him at last in his 
lost condition ; and by infinite patience leads him 
back through dangers innumerable, safe to the path 
again, not far from where he left it. And we all give 
a great sigh of relief that the lost man has been found 
and saved ; that the guide's work has been so well 
done. But has it been done ? Has it not rather been 
only just begun? He has merely brought the man 
back to that path which he ought never to have 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST 125 

left. Now we must begin to talk about finishing the 
journey. 

Here is another man who wishes to make some in- 
tricate piece of machinery. And he himself has been 
taught such first principles of mechanics as should 
enable him to begin the work ; making the frame and 
foundation for it, perhaps, or some of the simpler 
parts. Then he must call in the wise inventor to 
construct for him that peculiar and delicate mechan- 
ism which he himself does not understand. In due 
time the inventor comes, and looking over that part 
of the work which the man was to do, finds it worth- 
less. The good material has been almost ruined ; the 
man stands staring hopelessly at what he has done ; 
utterly unable even to repair his own blunders. And 
so the inventor's first task must be to put this part 
of the work in shape; to undo the injury which the 
man has wrought by his carelessness, or his foolish 
experiments. And every one is greatly pleased when 
this is accomplished. He has proved his skill as an 
inventor, we say; for he has repaired the damage: 
the machine is just as good as it was before the blun- 
der was made. Yes; but is that all? How about 
that intricate mechanism, which was to give the whole 
work its value, and which the skilful inventor had 
promised to construct? Have we forgotten about 
that? Do we say that the whole work has been 
done as soon as the injury has been repaired? 



126 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 



Thus we must ask as concerns this race of ours, 
which has bungled so sadly over its work of building 
up a perfect humanity ; which has wandered so far 
from the path appointed for its journey. Our Sav- 
iour's first task must be to undo for us the damage 
that we have done; to restore to its first order the 
work that we had thrown into ruinous disorder; to 
lead us back safe to the path from which we had 
wandered. And this was so great a task, our blunder 
had been so fatal, it had seemed so far beyond belief 
that the damage done could ever be repaired— that 
perhaps it has not been strange if Christians have 
often forgotten everything else, believing and teach- 
ing that Christ's whole work for man was to save him 
from sin. Nevertheless, these further questions will 
come up again after a while : After we have regained 
the path, how about the journey ? After the damage 
has been repaired, how about finishing the machine ? 
Suppose that man had not sinned at all, would there 
have been no work for Christ ? After man is saved 
from his sin, does he need nothing more from Christ ? 
Is it our highest desire for our human race that we 
should merely be put back once more at the point 
where Adam stood before he wandered and fell ? 
Has the divine Son no higher place in God's scheme 
of creation than merely to repair the blunders of 
God's creatures ? Now bring these questions face to 
face with our text, and see whether the Scriptures 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 127 

do teach that Christ's whole work for man was to 
save him from sin. Paul says, " And so it is written, 
The first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last 
Adam was made a life-giving spirit." 

" And so it is written," he says : he is quoting from 
Old Testament Scripture. We turn back to see what 
he means by his quotation, and read in the second 
chapter of Genesis: " And the Lord God formed man 
of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living 
soul." That was Adam, the first man ; as he came 
from the Creator's hand, in Paradise, before ever he 
had sinned, before he had been tempted ; standing at 
the summit of the physical creation ; standing erect, 
as if to show that he had been given dominion over 
all the works of God's hands ;.. naturally lifting his 
gaze toward the heavens, as if to show that his course 
lay thitherward ; and yet standing upon the earth ; 
connected in some way with that whole process of 
creation which had preceded him ; formed like the 
rest of the dust of the ground. This was the first 
man Adam, who, through the inbreathing of the 
Almighty, became a living soul. There was no sin 
as yet : the work was faultless as far as it had gone. 
But, Paul says : " It was of the earth, earthy." This 
man now created has a body which realizes the ideal 
perfection of the animal body ; has also a reasonable 
soul, where every vague instinct of the animal crea- 



128 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 



tion should rise into some higher act of intelligence. 
Looking upon this man, you feel that you can under- 
stand now the meaning of all that has been made be- 
fore. He is like the capital city, and all the roads of 
creation point toward him. 

As we read those opening chapters of Genesis, and 
still more clearly as the rocks are made to tell us their 
story of patient development ; plant, and fish, and rep- 
tile, and bird, and mammal ; each order of existence 
foreshadowing something more perfect than itself: 
what was an unmeaning protuberance in the earlier, 
becoming a useful limb or organ in the later : so that 
each page of the history can be fully understood only 
when we read through the following chapter — as the 
rocks, I say, are made to tell this story of patient de- 
velopment, which we had before heard more briefly 
through the opening chapter of Genesis — we can see 
that God's entire workmanship with the dust of the 
ground properly ended when He had made man. All 
the converging lines have now come together. Every- 
thing made before either foreshadowed man's body, 
with its beauty of form, and sublimity of posture, and 
infinite variety of motion, and diversity of sense, and 
supremacy of brain — everything made before either 
foreshadowed this body of man, or else was prepared 
for his enjoyment and use. In him we see the lord 
of this whole earthly Paradise, fitted to name and 
rule all its living creatures, and to enjoy all its fruits. 
His coming gives completeness to all the rest. 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 129 

II. But, my friends, we cannot look long upon this 
man Adam without feeling that as yet he has no 
completeness in himself. He gives completeness to 
the lower creation, but he has no completeness in 
himself. His nature is noble enough to give mean- 
ing to Paradise, but that earthly Paradise was not 
noble enough to give meaning to him. The hunger 
of his soul is not satisfied by its abundance : he is 
lonely among all its innumerable denizens. Was he 
made for no better occupation than naming the 
bjasts and eating the fruits of the garden ? " Such a 
piece of work as man ; so noble in reason ; so infinite 
in faculties ; in form and moving so express and ad- 
mirable, . . . the beauty of the world, the paragon of 
animals"; and yet, after all, must we not exclaim 
with Hamlet: "What is this quintessence of dust?" 
And so, too, reasons Paul in our chapter. You notice 
he is not talking about sin ; that fact does not enter 
into his present argument at all. Quite apart from 
sin, something more was needed to give completeness 
to the first Adam. For that Adam, with all his 
splendid possibilities, is but the quintessence of dust ; 
he is of the earth, earthy : and all who are born from 
him, by mere natural generation, are of the earth, 
earthy. 

And yet we were formed to look above the earth ; 

all the aspirations of our nature point heavenward, 

along a road which we cannot travel alone. This 
6* 



130 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 

intricate mechanism of man, even when endowed 
with a reasonable soul, is not yet complete ; that 
which is to give it lasting value is yet lacking. For 
this man was created to hold the Spirit of God, and 
to dwell at the right hand of God. All these facul- 
ties, so marvellously developed, of body and mind 
and heart, were made to be the dwelling-place and 
the conscious glad instrument of the Infinite One. 
And then, when at length fully possessed by that 
eternal Spirit, what is corruptible in these faculties 
shall be changed to incorruption ; and what is mortal 
to immortality. But the gift of that divine nature 
must come unto man by a second and higher birth. 
For what was born of the flesh is flesh merely ; only 
those born of the Spirit become truly sons of God. 
I am repeating these familiar phrases of Scripture in 
order to remind you how constantly the truth is there 
recognized that man needs vastly more than to be 
saved from his sins. Quite apart from sin, a second 
Adam is needed, who shall be the Lord from heaven, 
the Son of God made man, to lead us, descendants of 
the first Adam, up to our final destiny. 

How this full salvation would have been wrought 
for us, if we had not sinned, the Bible does not say. 
Perhaps some hint of it is given in the mystical 
language of Genesis, where we read of that " tree 
of life of which man might take and eat and live 
forever/' Those words may give some hint of the 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 131 

salvation which Christ would have brought to man 
in the garden by the way of innocence. But, at 
all events, what we are taught clearly is that, sin 
or no sin, man needed this gift of full salvation from 
the Son of God before he could enter upon his ex- 
alted destiny. Without that gift, Adam remains 
only a living soul, of the earth, earthy. For let me 
now read once more these verses from Corinthians 
beginning with our text, and you will notice that not 
one word need be changed, even if Adam had never 
fallen from his first estate : "And so it is written, The 
first man Adam became a living soul, the last Adam 
a life-giving spirit. Howbeit, not first is that which 
is of the spirit, but that which is of the soul (that 
which is natural, according to our version), afterward 
that which is of the spirit. The first man is of the 
earth, earthy ; the second man is of heaven. As is 
the earthy, such are they also that are earthy ; and 
as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heav- 
enly ; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, 
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Some- 
thing more in that than just undoing the damage of 
the Fall. 

III. But perhaps you will say, what is the use of 
these imaginary suppositions ? Whatever might have 
been needed for an innocent Adam and his race of 
innocent descendants, the real Adam sinned, and we 
have all followed him in sin : and now this second 



132 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST 

Adam, our Saviour, must bear the burden of our sin 
on the cross ; and therefore to us He is the Lord 
who loved us and gave Himself for us ; and to the 
end of eternity our song of praise shall be, " Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain." Why should we trouble 
ourselves to ask about the salvation of such imaginary 
creatures as never had sinned, and needed no lamb 
slain for their redemption ? 

There is force in such questions ; nevertheless it 
does remain important that we should grasp as much 
as we can of the Scriptural teaching on this subject ; 
understanding that Christ's work for man is some- 
thing greater and better than merely to undo the 
damage of the Fall, and I will suggest one or two rea- 
sons why this truth is important. 

One reason is, that it shows the work of man's sal- 
vation to be in harmony with all God's works. I 
think that v/e have often placed needless stumbling- 
blocks in the way of our own and our neighbor's 
faith. We have sometimes tried to make it appear 
that all these Scriptural facts were marvellous excep- 
tions in the course of history ; when so often they 
are striking illustrations of the course of history. 
Holding this inspired teacher in our hands, we have 
taken almost a hostile position toward all other 
teachers : almost as if we dreaded and resented the 
discoveries of scientists and critics and historians. 
Some of us have almost dared say to our hearers, 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 133 

"You must take your choice between this teacher, 
the Bible, and those teachers : for you cannot adhere 
to both." " You cannot," men said once, <; believe 
with Galileo, that the earth goes round the sun, and 
also believe this book which makes the sun go round 
the earth : you cannot believe those who speak of ages 
of creation, and also this Moses who speaks of six 
days of creation." So men used to contend : but 
have we not all learned long since that we can believe 
both Galileo and the Psalmist ; both Moses with his 
days, and the Geologist with his ages ? 

Well, in our time the contention takes a somewhat 
different shape. These other teachers are all telling of 
progress, ascent, or building up : from the lower to the 
higher, from higher to higher yet : unceasing develop- 
ment in this whole universe : or evolution, to use the 
word which has come to stand for the entire contro- 
versy. But this one inspired teacher, on the other 
hand, has told us the story of a fall. They spoke of 
beginning at the bottom and working toward the top. 
This speaks (so we have understood) of beginning at 
the top, and tumbling toward the bottom. I have 
heard an eloquent preacher sum up the whole discus- 
sion in these words : " They make man an educated 
monkey : the Bible makes him a fallen prince." 

And there is undoubtedly such a contrast between 
many of these theories, known as evolution, and the 
plain teaching of Scripture. But, my friends, have we 



I 3 4 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 

not often exaggerated and misrepresented the con- 
trast ? According to Scripture, man is indeed a fallen 
prince ; but, according to Scripture, he did not fall from 
the top. There could be no more striking statement of 
the true principle of development, i. e. y of progressive 
creation, than this by Paul : " Howbeit, that was not 
first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and 
afterward that which is spiritual." Man was created 
of the earth, earthy ; he was to be re-created in the 
image of the heavenly ; and somewhere in that prog- 
ress from the lower toward the higher, from the 
natural toward the spiritual, man, through his own 
fault, wandered and stumbled and fell. That is the 
teaching of Scripture ; and is not that teaching in 
perfect harmony with all that is true in the words of 
these many other teachers round about us ? Does it 
not first shed light on the mystery of those other 
teachings ? 

Why, according to any atheistical science, the high- 
est product of evolution is man, as we now know 
him ; this broken promise that we see ; this failing 
endeavor; this being of infinite dreams and desires, 
but in himself a mere quintessence of dust : — for 
infidelity, that is the head of all things, that first 
Adam, of the earth, earthy. According to Scripture, 
the head of all things is Jesus Christ, and the church 
of His redeemed ; man lifted up by an incarnation of 
the Eternal Son, and exalted to the right hand of 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 135 

God, the Father Almighty ; and bestowing also upon 
us His brethren the gift of an indwelling Spirit, be- 
stowing upon us, as many as will receive, the right to 
become sons of God ; lifting us up at last to share 
His own exaltation, that we may become kings and 
priests unto God forever. Is there any conflict be- 
tween that teaching of Scripture and the lesson which 
they would have us learn from this visible world, the 
lesson of orderly development in all things ; develop- 
ment upward, step by step, through all stages of 
creation, till we reach God's finest handiwork in man ? 
Is it not rather true that man's promised salvation 
through Jesus Christ sheds the first clear ray of light 
on what would be otherwise a progress without goal, 
an evolution with nothing evolved, an insoluble and 
intolerable mystery? Yes, Jesus is, indeed, what 
Paul calls Him, the first-born of all creation ; through 
whom and unto whom all things have been created. 

Here is one reason, then, why we should be careful 
not to misrepresent the Scriptural teaching as to 
man's fall and redemption. For it is well to know 
that this spiritual work of God is not the contradic- 
tion, but the completion of all His other works. The 
goal of creation, that unto which all things were cre- 
ated, was not the first Adam, even in his first inno- 
cence ; the goal of creation is this second Adam, the 
incarnate Son of God ; and the race of mankind when 
at last united with Him by faith ; redeemed from its 



136 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 

sin, and also filled with the life-giving spirit, that we 
also as many as receive Him, may have the right to 
become sons of God. 

I will suggest another reason why it is important 
that we should understand the Scriptures in this mat- 
ter — a very practical reason. This fall of man is 
something more than an ancient history ; it is a con- 
stantly repeated personal experience. 

No doubt there is a profound truth intended by 
the figurative language of the catechism : " All man- 
kind descending from Adam by ordinary generation, 
sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgres- 
sion." But it is also true, — and I myself cannot but 
think it a more practically important truth for us, — 
that " every man is tempted, when he is drawn away 
of his own desire, and enticed. Then when desire 
hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin." We do not 
have to go back to Genesis, my friends, to corrobo- 
rate the various steps in that fall. Each of us has 
played for himself the part of Adam : some forbidden 
fruit there was, and we desired it, and dallied with our 
own desire, and it brought forth sin. And here we are, 
fallen, sinful, ashamed, afraid ; and we think regretfully, 
longingly, of that earlier Paradise, that comparative 
innocence from which we have been driven out. We * 
reach out our hands for that. Oh, that we might be 
restored to it ; that this shame and fear might be tak- 
en away, these defiled garments washed white again. 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST 137 

Now, in this despairing mood we hear of Jesus 
Christ, who came into the world to save sinners ; who 
came to seek the lost and restore them ; the sprink- 
ling of whose blood will make the foulest clean. And 
we turn to Him, with confession and contrition and 
faith : " Wash me," that is our prayer, " and I shall * 
be whiter than snow." And, my friends, I am very 
sure the Lord rejoices to see that temper of heart in 
any of us ; that He will not withhold an answer to 
that prayer. But I fear that sometimes, even in such 
moments of shame and contrition, we are not ready 
to receive all that He wishes to give. We have only 
wished to be rid of this sin, to be placed back where 
we were before we had fallen, to have once more an 
untroubled conscience ; to be able once more to look 
men squarely in the face, to be delivered from this 
fear of God's wrath. What we would have been if we 
had not sinned, that is what we want Christ to make 
us once more. And so when we think these prayers 
have been answered, and our sins forgiven ; and when 
this belief, or else some distraction, or diversion, or 
even the mere passage of time, has dulled the sense of 
guilt within us ; then we have nothing more to ask 
from our Saviour. Our fervency of prayer may be 
relaxed, for He has saved us ; He has brought us 
back from our wandering ; He has washed away our 
stains ; and now He may leave us to go on our own 
way in peace. 



138 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 



Not that any one would ever confess such desires 
and thoughts even to himself ; but that is, it may be, 
what we have really desired from Christ : ah, but 
that is not at all what He has desired from us, or 
rather what He has desired to give us. He has come 
as a life-giving Spirit, to breathe Himself into us : 
so that our life should be no longer a mere animal 
existence, either sinful or sinless, but should be a 
communing with God ; our thoughts and desires 
reaching out toward Him ; our love growing contin- 
ually stronger for Him, as His love makes itself bet- 
ter known to us ; our joy found more and more in 
Him : so that the infinite Spirit should become to 
our spiritual life what this vital air has been to the 
life of our flesh : so that we shall continually breathe 
out, — or the Spirit shall breathe itself out in prayer, 
making intercession for us with groanings that cannot 
be uttered ; and so that we shall continually breathe 
in again blessed inspirations of this heavenly atmos- 
phere. We ourselves might have been content if 
Christ would but wash us clean from a certain num- 
ber of past offences ; but He was purposing to make 
us new creatures ; bearing the image of the heavenly, 
as we had borne the image of the earthy ; hungering 
and thirsting now after righteousness, as we had hun- 
gered after the fruits of an earthly Paradise ; our souls 
waiting for the Lord more than they that watch for 
the morning ; and finding our joy in His coming and 



THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 139 

presence. That is something far greater, far better, 
is it not, than merely to be restored, cleansed from 
sin, to a life of innocent earthiness ? 

My friends, let us all try to gain juster views of 
what the Bible means by regeneration and salvation. 
Let us understand that this Christianity offered ought 
to complete for us the whole process of our creation ; 
ought to pervade and control and interpret every de- 
partment of our life : our study, our work, our play, 
our endurance of suffering, our joy ; — through it all we 
ought to be coming into the image of the heavenly, 
ought to be growing up in all things into Him, which 
is the head, even Christ. For not only our moral na- 
ture belongs to Christ if we are His, but the whole 
life of our affections and of our intellect, until every 
thought is brought into obedience to Him; and in 
some sense the Bible teaches that even these mortal 
bodies are to be quickened through the Spirit of 
Christ that dwelleth in us. 

Therefore, every part of us which had been formed 
out of the dust of the ground, earthy, and then de- 
formed by sin, is to be transformed by the life-giving 
Spirit, and made heavenly. That, my friends, is the 
salvation which God, through Jesus Christ, has freely 
offered us in our sin and shame. Think of it ; a wealth 
of salvation, incredible and inconceivable even to that 
sinless Adam who first dwelt in Paradise, freely offered 
now to us in our sin and shame. Oh, we must not 



I 4 THE FIRST ADAM AND THE LAST. 



dishonor the giver by accepting less than the whole 
of the gift. Let us pray and work for this full-grown 
manhood which our Creator and Father has designed 
for us, the measure of the stature of the fulness of 
Christ. 



IX. 



THE COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS*. 

" And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for 
I perceive that virtue is gone out of me." — 
Luke viii. 46. 

You remember the incident. Jesus walking along 
the road, surrounded by a dense throng of people. A 
poor, sick woman pressing up behind, and touching 
the border of His garment with the hope that she 
might be healed, and she was healed. Jesus stopped 
at once, asking who touched Him, and added the 
words of our text. He perceived that virtue or power 
had gone out of Him. We must suppose that He 
already knew the woman's faith, because He seems 
not to have performed such miracles of healing except 
in answer to faith ; but, however that may be, these 
words also remain true ; He felt that virtue or power 
had gone out of Himself. He was conscious of some 
drain upon His own energies. A similar phrase, you 
remember, occurs in another passage: "The whole 
multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue 
out of Him, and healed them all." 



* Preached in Bath, February 4, 1883; in Plainfield, May 
18, 1884. 

(141) 



142 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

These words become very significant in view of the 
fact that Christ's work of healing left Him weary. 
Notices are frequent of His urgent demand for rest. 
He must flee from this multitude, across the Sea of 
Galilee, for a few days' repose ; or up into the country 
about Tyre and Sidon, where none would know Him. 
It is the picture of a man completely exhausted, 
whose powers must recuperate before his work should 
continue. We can well understand such exhaustion 
when we come to know that for all this work of heal- 
ing which occupied so largely the early part of His 
ministry, power must go out of Him. 

The truth to be learned from these words is, that 
real benefits cost. I. First, let us pursue the subject 
further in connection with the work of Christ Him- 
self. That was a great work of benefaction toward all 
the world ; the truth now presented is that all the 
benefits so conferred cost Him. We are always in 
danger of making Christ's life a sort of acting, a the- 
atrical display ; and we are all the more in danger of do- 
ing this because of our reverence for Him as divine. If 
we believed Jesus to be a mere man, then His tempta- 
tions and triumph over them, His prayers, His deeds 
of kindness, His struggles with doubt, and the sublime 
heroism of His death, would at least be real, and we 
should find great inspiration in His human example, 
even if otherwise He were powerless to save us. For 
this reason I think those who do not believe in our 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 143 

Lord's divinity, have sometimes done great service to 
the Church through their intense admiration for His 
genuine humanity. It is as a man that He must first 
make Himself known to us; and nothing can, in the 
end, be more fatal to our faith, than to lose our hold 
on that truest and realest of all human lives by which 
He has come forever into the midst of us. 

Our Saviour at once becomes powerless to save, if He 
seems to be some divine being who merely put on Him 
a garment of flesh, that He might, for a few years, play 
the part of a man ; who made a show of going through 
the various acts of human life ; passed through a dra- 
matic and, of course, successful conflict with the devil, 
merely to set us an example of resistance to tempta- 
tion ; went through the form of saying a prayer merely 
to set us an example that we should pray ; deliber- 
ately and needlessly went through the form of dying 
on the cross, that He might rise from the grave, and 
so teach us to die by making us sure that we may rise 
from the dead ; — the whole performance artificial ; a 
well-meaning pretence at the need and suffering of 
humanity, in order that we may be shown how to bear 
ourselves in such need and suffering. The trouble is, 
that such a showing gives no help. A struggling, sin- 
ful man at my side who actually overcomes some great 
temptation is more of a help to me in my struggles 
than some perfectly sinless being who only pretends 
to be tempted in order to show me how to overcome. 



144 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

Now, whatever else we miss of seeing, let us at 
least open our eyes to the intense reality of that 
human life described in the four Gospels. We are 
told there about one Jesus, a Nazarene, who, what- 
ever else He may have been, was through and through 
the most thoroughly human man that ever lived ; 
took up into Himself most completely our human 
nature ; and that was in part the reason why He 
made so deep an impression on the men of His gen- 
eration, and also why His influence has continued 
and increased in the world ever since. Other men 
touch us at a few points ; He touches us everywhere. 
We cannot get away from Him. All the social and 
political questions of our own day, even more than 
those of His day, are pervaded by His human pres- 
ence and await His deep human decision. It is from 
this solid basis of humanity, believing Jesus the tru- 
est man that ever lived, the one altogether true man 
that ever lived, it is from this that one's faith may 
rise to the view of the God manifested in Him. 

Now nothing makes Christ's humanity more evi- 
dently real to us than its limitations ; His pains, His 
uncertainty, His weariness ; His necessary use of 
means to accomplish ends, as watching and prayer; 
and the cost to Himself of these ends accomplished. 
So that even this miraculous power of healing, which 
seems to us most entirely unhuman, seems to speak 
of infinite reserves of force, on which He may draw 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 145 



without fear of exhaustion ; even that He uses at His 
own cost, by vast hidden effort, as one might say. 
Even that, perhaps, rests on His completer humanity, 
as well as on the divine in Him. He cured a demo- 
niac once on whom His disciples had experimented 
in vain ; and they asked Him why their experiments 
had been in vain, and He answered, " This kind goeth 
not out but by prayer/' As if His own success 
sprang from His own deeper exertion rather than 
from some entirely different source of power. His 
whole work of healing, I believe, if rightly under- 
stood, does not hold Him away as an unearthly ma- 
gician ; but brings Him very near us all, able to heal 
because He partakes more completely than we of this 
whole human nature ; able to heal also because He is 
willing to make cost : His blessed work for others a 
fearful drain upon Himself. 

Our souls need healing more than our bodies ; and 
it is for this, more peculiarly, that men have craved 
the help of Jesus. Nor have they looked to Him in 
vain. Even while He was curing their bodies, it be- 
gan to be perceived that He wished to save men from 
their sins, and that He could save men from their 
sins. But at what a cost was this work accomplished ! 
He helped sinners by living among them, eating and 
drinking in the midst of them, surrounding Himself 
with them. What an association for a being of His 
perfect purity ; of what we may call, for want of a 
7 



I4D COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

better phrase, His perfect refinement of taste ! That 
foulness of actual sin : it is easy for us to idealize those 
ancient sinners, and make their sins, as well as His 
work of salvation, a sort of stage performance ; but 
Christ was brought close to the uncleanness, the blas- 
phemy, the intemperance, and the reckless misery of 
wicked men and wicked women ; and, moreover, He 
stood among these not as a spectator, far away in 
thought and feeling while near bodily ; as one of us 
might walk, if necessary, through the vile alleys of a 
city, holding our breath, closing our ears almost, 
drawing our clothes about us to avoid contamination ; 
not so 7 but by some means Christ made Himself at 
home with those sinners, and made them feel at home 
with Him ; so that they recognized Him as a friend ; 
and wretches who would have shrunk away in terror 
from the supposed purity of a Pharisee, did not fear 
to open their hearts in confession before this truly 
sinless Jesus : because they felt assured of His sym- 
pathy. They knew by that strangely certain knowl- 
edge of the feelings, that this man could place Him- 
self beside them, and know the weight of their tempta- 
tions, and sorrow with them in their guilt and shame : 
by the completeness of His human sympathy taking 
some of the weight of this burden from their shoul- 
ders to His own. And they did not misjudge Him. 

Ah, but at what a cost had that sinless man brought 
Himself thus spiritually into the midst of the sinful ! 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 147 

These miserable ones found virtue and faith and 
moral strength in His presence ; but it was a virtue 
that had gone out of Him, not leaving Him the less 
pure, but leaving Him sometimes, as it seems, almost 
beaten down, and exhausted by the spiritual effort. 

He pronounced forgiveness also upon penitent sin- 
ners. Mere words, we think, perhaps ; as one of us 
might read off a form of absolution to one who had 
confessed. The difference is that our absolution does 
not absolve ; His, as sinners well knew, did absolve. 
They felt — many repentant sinners have felt it since — 
that He not only spoke their pardon, but He accom- 
plished it. And if one asks how, the heart of Chris- 
tendom has always answered by pointing to the cross. 
Ask what that cross means, and perhaps no two men 
will answer you alike : but we all know well that it 
means fearful cost. We know, looking upon that 
cross, that this virtue of forgiveness which enters into 
our souls came out of Him ; that through sore agony 
of spirit, through great and utterly exhausting en- 
deavor, through a sorrowing even unto death, He 
has become able to speak pardon to us. 

" We may not know, we cannot tell 
What pains Pie had to bear. 
But we believe it was for us 
He hung and suffered there." 

That was no show performance, no feigned suf- 
fering ; in Gethsemane, as well as on Calvary, there 



I 4 8 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 



is a terrible reality about the struggle and anguish, a 
reality which our hearts all feel, if our heads do make 
sad work in trying to account for it. We feel that 
there was fought out the decisive battle in this whole 
w T arfare of the human race against evil, or of the God 
in man against the devil in man. It is on the solid 
reality of that fight and triumph that the Christian 
Church has always built her hope. 

Christ's word of pardon for any believer is not a 
sort of letter of recommendation, such as you might 
give any applicant, costing you only the effort of 
signing your name ; but it is like the draft on your 
banker, which you hand to another only when you 
mean to transfer some amount of capital to him, 
which takes from you whatever it confers on him. 

So the whole gracious work to which Jesus devoted 
His life was a work which involved fearful cost to 
Himself. The virtue which came upon others came 
out of Him. His work of healing for men's bodies, 
as it seems — certainly His work of healing for their 
souls ; the association with sinful men and women, 
coming into knowledge of their guilt and temptation 
and need ; winning them by sympathy, a true suffer- 
ing with them of all the wretchedness of their sin ; 
pronouncing pardon upon all w T ho repented, and able 
to pronounce it and make His words good, because 
He, sinless, had carried off on His pure soul the bur- 
den of their guilt. 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 149 

My friends, if we receive any benefits from this 
Christian religion — and who of us does not? — what 
should be our feeling toward Him who so won them 
for us, at such unlimited cost to Himself, yielding 
Himself, life and death, for us men and our salvation? 

II. Now let us carry this same truth into our own 
relations among ourselves, the truth that real ben- 
efits cost : if we would cause any virtue or power to 
enter into others, it must come out of us. 

This is true to a large extent even of our material 
gifts to the needy. Of course, from the nature of 
things, the money that we give away leaves so much 
the less in our own hands. But I mean more than 
that. There is a kind of charity which seems to make 
all parties the poorer; the opposite of true mercy, it 
curseth him who gives and him who takes. Such is 
the unloving gift of any one who from mere whim of 
generosity, or other unworthy motive, gives of his 
abundance that which is no cost to himself, no cost 
of privation, and no cost of personal oversight and 
sympathy. We must call it a piece of improbable 
good fortune if such gifts ever do good. Their usual 
result must be only increased dependence and pauper- 
ism. Money given does the most good, no doubt, 
when this money is the least important part of the 
gift ; when it comes as the needful but subordinate 
attendant of real charity, of true sympathy and per- 
sonal assistance : hence, also, the gifts of the poor 



150 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

which in themselves cause privation to the giver are 
often especially helpful to men as well as pleasing 
to God. 

But money is a subordinate element in all true 
charity, and in many cases there is no occasion for its 
use. How is it with the higher regions of benevo- 
lence ? One duty which we owe to each other in this 
world of many sorrows, is consolation. Those who 
are crushed by disappointment or affliction need to 
be cheered and helped upon their feet again. And 
this ministry of helpfulness toward each other is com- 
mitted to us all as part of our Christian duty. A 
simple matter it might seem to a careless observer : 
a few words ; what is cheaper ? But have we not all 
found that there are words and words ; and those 
words which are cheap as to cost, are very cheap in 
value. The words which truly help are those which 
cost dear ; which come from a heart filled with our 
sorrow : indeed, if we can be made to know that 
another heart is so suffering with our own, that 
knowledge often is consolation enough : a pressure 
of the hand from one will cheer you more than an 
hours conversation from another. 

It is seldom that our brotherly affection is strong 
enough of itself to bring us into such full sympathy 
with those who are deeply afflicted. Therefore, some 
past affliction of one's own is needed commonly to 
open his heart wide to the sorrows of another. So it 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 151 

is that deep personal sorrow is often the price which 
those have paid who are able to minister most help- 
fully to others. " Who comforteth us in all our tribu- 
lation," the apostle says, " that we may be able to com- 
fort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort 
wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." 
Every word of comfort that truly comforts, I believe, 
is not cheap, but dear : it has been paid for either by 
the speaker's own past sorrow, or by his present shar- 
ing of the other's grief. 

But mere sorrow does not represent man's deepest 
need. If sorrow were all, probably most might stand 
alone without help from their fellows. Our worst 
need of help still comes from our sins. The world's 
chief need of help lies in its sin. If we desire to be 
helpful to our fellows or any of them, we must desire 
most of all to help them out of their sins. But how 
is this help to be rendered ? It is easy to offer advice ; 
it is easy to point out the folly and danger of sin, and 
to speak of the rewards of virtue. But there seems 
to be no connection often between our words of good 
counsel and those who ought to profit by them. For 
some reason they do not care to listen ; or if they 
listen, it is to forget. Even telling the story of the 
Gospel seems often to be of little profit. Most of 
the sinners in Christendom have heard that story at 
some time in their lives ; but they hear and under- 
stand not. The sacred words have no power to reach 



152 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS, 

them. We learn at last that if virtue is to enter 
them, it must come out of some one else. They will 
not truly hear the Gospel until some one speaks it, 
at great cost ; some one who has taken upon himself 
the burden of their sins. 

Often it may be one who has himself sinned, as 
they have sinned, and who is so brought into sympa- 
thy with their guilt : and is able to lead them up the 
path of reformation, which he himself has trodden 
before them. But this need not always be so. He 
who most perfectly bore the burden of others' guilt 
had never sinned at all Himself. And some of Christ's 
noblest followers have needed no apprenticeship of 
great personal sin to bring them into sympathy with 
the sinful about them. But in some way that sym- 
pathy must exist, if one man is to help another, if 
sinful men are to be reconciled to God ; and certainly 
the Lord has committed to His disciples this ministry 
of reconciliation. We often hear it said truly that 
Christians are the world's Bible : we might say further 
that Christians are, and were intended to be, the 
world's Christ. The living servant of Christ, who has 
received his Lord's Spirit, who feels upon his own 
heart the burden of others' sin and shame, who tries 
at his own cost to win them back to pardon and holi- 
ness, he is the visible representative before men of 
Him who died on Calvary: and it is in this living 
man that they will first see, if they ever see at all, 



COST OF CHRISTIAN' USEFULNESS. 153 

that perfect Saviour who bore their sins for them. 
The benefit still costs. 

Not that the cost is always apparent on the sur- 
face : the greater it is, the less attention it will claim 
for itself. Any proclamation or display of self-denial 
is a sign that the sacrifice is not yet complete : that 
the giver is not quite ready to pay the full cost. 
There was no sign of painful effort in the life of Jesus 
among sinners ; if we except this often-recurring 
weariness, and that agony of spirit which found ex- 
pression at times of very strong emotion. Usually 
it seemed the most natural thing in the world for 
Him to choose just those associates, and speak just 
such words as He did speak to them. And so it is 
with the persons who are most Christlike now, and 
accomplish the most of Christ's work for men. In 
watching them, you are not all the time made con- 
scious of painful effort. What they do or say seems 
to be natural to them, and quite without exertion. 
No credit to them, we are tempted to think — it is no 
trouble to them to be good and do good : no self- 
sacrifice ; ah ! but it is because their self-sacrifice has 
been made so completely. The cost has already been 
paid without grudging, and now they seem to be 
always ahead of their duties, as a wise man of busi- 
ness keeps ahead of his debts. They have always a 
reserve fund of Christian force, of sympathy and 
moral strength. In times of spiritual panic, you have 

7* 



154 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

no fears of their capital. They hold up many more 
about them by their own firmness. You hear little 
about the effort, the cost : but be very sure it has 
been paid. Their effort is that of the trained work- 
man, whose strongest exertions have an appearance 
of ease. 

Our Lord, foreseeing His own death, bade His dis- 
ciples take up each a cross and carry it after Him. 
If any Christian in becoming thoroughly Christlike 
seems without this burden, be sure that it is because 
he has learned so willingly to bear his cross, not be- 
cause it has been lifted from his shoulders. He wishes, 
like Christ, to go about doing good : and without 
grudging, with no sign of effort, he pays the cost of 
doing good. 

III. But we ask in closing, is the Christian life, 
then, one of privation, of final diminution and loss ? 
The inspiration of well-doing would be taken away, 
if we supposed that the man who conferred spiritual 
benefits upon others was left himself spiritually the 
poorer. But God forbid. That old contradiction 
from the book of Proverbs holds good here, most of 
all : " There is that scattereth and yet increaseth." 
Our Lord's well-doing was undoubtedly a drain upon 
Him, virtue going out of Him, bringing often great 
exhaustion of mind and body ; and yet it was also 
true that this well-doing was a joy and nourishment 
to Him : " I have meat to eat that ye know not of ; 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 155 

my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and 
to finish His work." One of those impossible truths 
of all profoundest experience : what wearied Him 
was also His highest nourishment. What cost the 
most, enriched Him the most. We see traces occa- 
sionally of the deep joy which Christ took in His 
efforts for men, whenever those efforts succeeded. 
That this joy was so seldom manifested must have 
been because, before His own death, those efforts so 
seldom did succeed. Only a few were won even by 
the marvellous attraction of His presence, until the 
cost of His salvation had been clearly revealed upon 
the cross. But taking His work as a whole, we are 
assured that He shall see of the travail of His soul 
and shall be satisfied. 

Has not the humblest imitator of Jesus begun to 
learn that only out of travail of soul comes any high 
satisfaction ? Why ! we gain hints of the truth even 
from the lower processes of bodily and mental effort. 
That muscular exertion which accomplishes largest 
results, and costs the most tissue, and brings most 
complete exhaustion and need of rest, is, at the same 
time, that which brings the fullest enjoyment with 
it. Or any man who works with his mind will tell 
us, that when his thoughts move readily and joyously, 
so that in a few hours he is able to do the work of 
days, he learns at the close that he has made the 
heaviest demand upon the nervous forces of the brain, 



156 COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 

and most urgently needs rest. A student's miserable 
days are those when he cannot exhaust himself; when 
his mental bank suspends payment ; when no mental 
virtue will come out of him. He is left none the 
poorer, except for a day wasted ; but others are none 
the richer, and he himself looks back upon hours of 
vexation, of baffled endeavor. 

So that which costs is also that which well repays 
the cost. So it is doubtless true, as a distinguished 
writer of our day has said, that " the old masters 
painted for joy and knew not that virtue had gone 
out of them "; while, on the other hand, the first 
great master of Christian song also said truly of his 
greatest poem, that it had " made him lean for many 
years." Any masterpiece of art has been accom- 
plished at great cost of power, — power of body and 
of feeling and of thought ; and yet who can doubt 
that its accomplishing brought the artist also his 
keenest joy and most enriched his power? 

So it will be, I am sure, with the art of Christian 
living and Christian working. When most successful, 
it is, doubtless, most costly ; there has been, and is, 
the freest surrender of oneself to it ; surrender of 
one's time and strength, and personal ambition, and 
natural inclination and tastes ; a heavy cross has 
been raised and carried without shrinking. The dis- 
ciple has been willing to be as his Lord ; he has freely 
submitted to the burden of others' needs and sor- 



COST OF CHRISTIAN USEFULNESS. 157 

rows and sins ; has endured the cross, despising the 
shame. If he has been a source of strength and 
purity to others, it is because virtue has come out of 
him. And yet so far as his labors avail, are we not 
assured that he remembereth no more the anguish for 
joy ? Can he not say with his Master that he sees 
of the travail of his soul and is satisfied? Yes, my 
friends, the life of Christian effort costs much ; we 
may be very sure of that. Without this cost, it 
would not be worth the living. It costs the largest 
price of consecration, because it is the highest master- 
piece of humanity ; but it is well worth the cost. 
We need fear no after-regret if we devote to it all 
our powers of body and soul and spirit. 



X. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS* 

" But Esaias is very bold, " — Rom. x. 20. 

In our study of the Old Testament we have exam- 
ined the authorship of the Pentateuch, the book or 
books of the Law of Moses. In spite of some uncer- 
tainty as to the time when those books took just 
their present shape, we found the fact unquestionable 
that this man Moses was the great lawgiver of Israel ; 
hence that the religious history of that people was 
based, from the beginning, on a knowledge of God's 
law — on some knowledge of God's law. The obliga- 
tion of righteousness, the duty owed to God, the 
duty owed to one's neighbor — all subsequent relig- 
ious teaching in Israel may assume those obligations 
to be known. 

Now, this evening I wish to study with you hastily 
all the rest of the Old Testament canon, the books 
from Joshua on : and then to inquire what place the 
prophets occupied in the religious history of Israel ; 
or, in other words, how prophecy was related to the 

* This and the two following discourses are from a series 
preached on " The Canon of Scripture." 
(158) 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 159 

Law. For the first part of our subject, since it is of 
such great extent, we must be content with the most 
general survey. 

In our English Old Testament you will notice that 
the several books are arranged as follows : first, after 
the Pentateuch, all the historical books ; then Job ; 
the Psalms of David ; and the writings attributed to 
Solomon ; then all the prophets. The Hebrew order 
is different. After the Pentateuch come, as a second 
group, what they call the prophets ; these include 
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and then all the 
books that we call prophetic, except Lamentations 
and Daniel. The rest of the books come in a third 
group, which the Hebrews call Cetubim, or " writ- 
ings." Modern critics generally refer to them by 
their Greek title, " the Hagiographa," " Holy writ- 
ings." 

This threefold division agrees with the words of 
our Lord in Luke xxiv. 44: "All things must be 
fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and 
in the prophets, and in the Psalms "; the Psalms be- 
ing the most important of the Hagiographa, this 
third group. More commonly the New Testament 
speaks of the Old as merely the law and the proph- 
ets, ignoring the third group. 

With regard to the second group, it may seem 
strange to us that several of the historical books 
should be included among the prophets. The expla- 



l6o THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 



nation of this is to be sought in the fact that these 
books of history were doubtless composed by pro- 
phetic authors. The institution known in Scripture 
as the sons of the prophets, — often referred to in our 
day as the school of the prophets, — an institution 
founded by Samuel, and revived apparently by 
Elijah, was the centre of the intellectual life — the 
literary and musical life — as well as of the spiritual 
life of the nation. And undoubtedly the successive 
historians of the people all belonged to this prophetic 
company, or school. Reference is made, e. g. y to his- 
tories of David by the prophets, Samuel, Gad, and 
Nathan : histories of Solomon and Jeroboam by the 
prophets Nathan and Iddo, etc. These separate 
works have all perished : but their material survives 
in our present books of Samuel and Kings. And it 
is almost certain that the writers of these present 
books belonged also to the class of prophets. There- 
fore the books of Kings, etc., came to be called pro- 
phetic ; just as much so as the book of Isaiah, many 
parts of which, you remember, are historical. 

The dates and authors of these historical prophetic 
books are largely unknown. And you will observe 
what a remarkable fact it is that these Old Testament 
writers seemed totally indifferent to personal fame. - 
It was enough for them that they should contribute 
to the record of God's dealings with their race : their 
own names might be forgotten. The book of Joshua 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 161 



describes the conquest of Canaan. Judges, the rapid 
falling away of the people from Jehovah, an apostasy 
and ruin which threatened to become complete ex- 
cept as God raised up one judge after another to 
check it : this period lasts some 300 years. The 
book of Samuel describes the great revival under 
that prophet, and the rise of the monarchy of David ; 
the books of Kings, the subsequent history of the 
monarchy till the exile. When these several books, 
or perhaps we should say these several portions of 
this long historical work, were written, we do not 
know. But we are safe in calling the whole of it a 
prophetic work : and we do know that it was not 
finished till the exile ; for its closing sentences tell of 
" the kindly treatment of the last royal descendant 
of David in the Court of Babylon " (Stanley, iii., p. 21). 
Much can be said in favor of the opinion which some 
hold, that the compiler of our present books of Kings 
was the great prophet Jeremiah. 

As to the books which we ourselves call prophetic, 
they consist largely of the teachings of the prophets 
whose names they bear, committed to writing some- 
times by themselves, sometimes by their associates 
and followers. Such a scribe or private secretary is 
shown us in the person of Baruch, who wrote down 
the words of Jeremiah (Jer. xxxvi. 4). I will classify 
these books roughly, according to date. First, Jonah 
(which might have been described under the histori- 



1 62 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 



cal books), gives an account of a prophet teaching in 
the northern kingdom, under the house of Jehu, about 
850 B.C. Then followed Joel and Amos, also under 
the great house of Jehu, and Hosea, a little later; 
but all of them prophets of the northern kingdom of 
Israel. 

It will be noticed that up to this time this north- 
ern kingdom, the Ten Tribes, seems to have been 
the chief seat of prophecy, Elijah and Elisha both 
appearing there. But soon after Hosea, in 720 B.C., 
the ten tribes are carried away by the Assyrians. And 
at about the same time there comes a marvellous out- 
burst of prophecy in the south at Jerusalem, under 
King Uzziah and his successors, especially Hezekiah, 
The great prophets Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum belong 
to this period ; and also a Zechariah, possibly the au- 
thor of some parts of the much later book which now 
goes by that name. A little more than 700 years B.C. 
would be the date of this period. Then follow the ob- 
scurer names of Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and Obadiah, 
and then we come to the great prophet Jeremiah, who 
grew up in the reformation under King Josiah, and 
during whose long public life the children of Judah 
were carried away to Babylon. Partly contemporary 
with him comes Ezekiel, teaching among the exiles in 
Babylon. This period would be a little before and 
after 600 B.C. 

Then at the return from the Captivity we have 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 163 

Haggai, a later Zechariah, and last of all Malachi. 
In general these several books are a record of the 
teachings of the prophets whose names they bear; 
together with some narrative of current historical 
events. Many suppose, however, that the last part of 
Isaiah, from the fortieth chapter on, is the work of a 
later and nameless prophet, often spoken of now as 
the Evangelical prophet, and that parts of Zechariah 
(chaps, ix.-xiii.) are the work of a much earlier prophet, 
perhaps of him whom we mentioned as teaching under 
Uzziah. 

Now I must give a few words to the third class of 
books found in our Hebrew Bible, the so-called Hagio- 
grapha. These are, the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, The 
Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, 
Esther, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. Per- 
haps we may conclude that the writings of this third 
class were not accorded by the Jews quite the same 
supreme authority as the Law and the Prophets. And 
it is to be noticed that most of them are not appealed 
to in the New Testament. It is not so important, 
therefore, that we concern ourselves about their au- 
thorship. But this remark will not apply to the 
Psalms, which are quoted again and again as the utter- 
ance of the Holy Ghost. Many of the Psalms come, 
undoubtedly, from David, who introduced them into 
the public worship of Jehovah; but the whole Psalter 
was not completed till long after his time. 



164 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 

As to the other books of the Hagiographa, two or 
three remarks must suffice. It is to be noticed that 
Daniel is placed here, and not among the prophets; 
this may support the opinion of many scholars that 
that book in its present form was composed much later 
than the exile ; perhaps as late as the Maccabees, at 
a time when all men understood that the voice of 
prophecy had ceased. The prophet Daniel himself, of 
course, taught among the exiles in Babylon. The 
books of Chronicles seem to be from the same hand 
as the earlier part of Ezra. Some would call this the 
hand of Daniel, others of Ezra himself. It is to be 
noticed that Chronicles and Kings describe the same 
period of history, and sometimes in the same words ; 
but in general the books of Kings are written from the 
prophetic stand -point, being written by prophets; 
and Chronicles from the priestly stand-point, being 
written when the priesthood was taking the chief prom- 
inence. The last four chapters of Ezra were cer- 
tainly from his own hand, and Nehemiah was the 
author of most of the book which bears his name. 

Now we are ready to ask the question, why these 
books and no others have been admitted into the 
canon of the Old Testament as part of the Word of 
God ? It is not an easy question to answer ; for even 
while we believe the men who wrote these books to 
have been inspired, we do not believe that the men 
who afterward gathered them iiito this collection, ad.- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 165 

mitting these and excluding others, were specially in- 
spired. Indeed, no one knows who those collectors 
were, or when they did their work. 

Perhaps we cannot answer the question better than 
by saying that each book has proved its own right 
to stand in the canon of Scripture by staying there. 
Really, the same question comes up for every litera- 
ture. Out of the innumerable books written in every 
language, who shall decide which may be handed on 
for the instruction of posterity? Here are drama- 
tists without number at Athens in her golden age ; 
what council of critics shall pick out three of them — 
^Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides — for eternal fame? 
" No council of critics is needed," you answer ; 
" works like those will look after their own immor- 
tality.'' Or what great synagogue of learned men 
has made, or is making, the canon of our English 
literature ? Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spencer, Bacon, 
Milton, Dryden, and the rest. What critical author- 
ity has pronounced these works canonical and immor- 
tal ? You would laugh at such a question : the books 
prove themselves immortal by living forever, and the 
most that critics can do is to try to point out the ele- 
ments and causes of this immortality. 

Well, so it is with the Hebrew literature. There is, 
it is true, that same marked peculiarity which we have 
noticed throughout, in that these books attribute ev- 
ery good thing in themselves or among the people to 



1 66 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 



God. I, for one, believe their testimony on that point, 
and also believe that, just as God spoke in an especial 
manner through their authors, so He specially guarded 
these precious books from destruction or mutilation. 
But viewing the question from its human side, I 
think that these particular Hebrew books proved 
their right to live on and be studied by posterity, 
just as other good books have proved it, by their 
own manifest superiority. Time has sifted out the 
chaff, and the wheat remains. 

The Book of the Law stands forever as the centre 
and foundation of the Hebrew Scriptures ; the proph- 
ets have won at last for themselves an almost 
equal authority. The other books, the Hagiographa, 
did not all secure, perhaps, quite the same universal 
recognition. The Psalms, however, early gained a 
firm place for themselves in the public service of 
song. As to the rest, there may have been uncertain- 
ty. The New Testament writers make no use of Ec- 
clesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, Ezra, or Nehe- 
miah ; while, on the other hand, the Septuagint 
included the Maccabees and other books, which we 
no longer acknowledge. Thus the boundary line 
seems somewhat uncertain. We do not know that 
the Jewish canon was definitely and finally settled by 
any authoritative council in its present form until 
the assembly at Jamnia, during the war with Titus, 
seventy years after Christ. But the judgment of 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 167 



time has confirmed the decision of that assembly 
as substantially correct ; for every succeeding gen- 
eration has tested the decision for itself. I will 
close this part of our topic by quoting the words 
of the Gallican Confession, one of the great Protest- 
ant creeds : " We know these books to be canonical 
and the sure rule of our faith, not so much by the 
common accord and consent of the Church, as by the 
testimony and inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit, 
which enables us to distinguish them from other ec- 
clesiastical books " (Briggs' " Biblical Study," p. 108). 

II. Now we come to the second part of our even- 
ing's study. As we have seen, the two most import- 
ant divisions of the Hebrew canon, both according to 
its own arrangement and to the New Testament 
phraseology, were the law and the prophets. On a 
former evening we saw how the divine law of right- 
eousness lay at the foundation of all true religious 
life both for Jew and Christian. The books of Moses, 
therefore, belong rightfully at the beginning of our 
Sacred Scriptures. Now, what is the significance of 
this second group, the prophets, who come in be- 
tween the law and the Gospel ? 

First, we will view the question historically. We 
have seen that after the death of Moses, and then of 
Joshua and the elders that had known the great works 
of the Lord for Israel, the people fell away from their 
obedience. The law was forgotten ; and through 



1 68 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 



that mournful period of the judges, there seemed 
great danger lest Israel would lose all knowledge of 
the true God, and be merged in one or more of the 
idolatrous nations roundabout. Then under Samuel 
the prophet came a great revival of patriotism and of 
religious fervor ; and from that time on for 500 years, 
the prophets were the chief element of health and 
vitality in the national life. Samuel, Nathan, and 
King David himself ; then Ahijah, under whose in 
fluence the northern kingdom sprang into independ- 
ent life, because of the idolatry and tyranny of Solo- 
mon and his son ; then Elijah, by whom the northern 
kingdom was won back from the fatal apostasy of 
Baal-worship, encouraged by the heathen Queen 
Jezebel ; then Elisha, by whom Israel was saved from 
destruction by Ben Hadad of Damascus, and by 
whose agency the great house of Jehu was raised to 
the throne ; Isaiah, whose word guided and sustained 
good King Hezekiah in his reformation from idolatry, 
and his heroic resistance against the Assyrians ; and 
then Jeremiah, whose counsel, if followed, would have 
saved Jerusalem from destruction and the people 
from exile in Babylon. In each great epoch, these 
prophets stand out as representing the highest pa- 
triotism and piety and wisdom of the people ; they 
were the reformers, the preachers, and the statesmen 
of that entire age. 

But what was a prophet ; what does the name 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 169 

mean ? In English, unfortunately, we have restricted 
the word to a meaning which matches only one part 
of the ancient office, and which does not match at all 
the meaning of the ancient name. By our use a 
prophet is " one who foretells the future." Now, it 
is certain that the prophets did often foretell the 
future ; but that was by no means their prominent 
occupation. The Hebrew name comes from a root 
that means "to gush forth." The name means one 
through whom a divine impulse pours forth ex- 
cited utterance. The Greek word 7tpoq)r/rrj^ (in Eng- 
lish, prophet,) has the similar meaning of " spokes- 
man." 

The prophet was the man inspired to speak for 
God — whether about the past, the present, or the 
future, it mattered not : what distinguished him from 
other men was his direct connection with the Spirit 
of God. Through him the voice of the living God 
spoke to the people ; sometimes recalling and ex- 
plaining to them the forgotten law ; sometimes recall- 
ing and interpreting the wonderful history of their 
race ; always rebuking them for their present sin and 
folly, and indicating the true path of justice and holi- 
ness ; often directing their eyes forward and telling 
the certain results of disobedience, the certain results 
of faith ; always holding out the promise of God's re- 
stored favor to a penitent people. 

In this last aspect of his teaching the prophet be- 
8 



IJO THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 

came frequently the foreteller of things to come. But 
he always stands on the great principles of God's right- 
eousness, the principles of law as unfolded through Mo- 
ses ; and also upon God's gracious favor to the people, 
as exemplified in all their past history: standing on that 
basis of known fact he pours forth his denunciations, 
his warnings, his entreaties, his gracious promises. 

But now a little more in detail as to the religious 
teachings of the prophets. What strikes any one, at 
a first reading, is their exaltation of the moral prin- 
ciples of God's law above mere ceremonial forms. 
Samuel cries out to Saul: "To obey is better than 
to sacrifice." Amos says : " I hate your feast-days — 
and your meat-offerings— but let judgment run down 
as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." 
Hosea, in words afterward quoted by our Lord : " I 
desired mercy and not sacrifice." Isaiah: "Your new 
moons and appointed feasts my soul hateth; cease 
to do evil, learn to do well ; undo the heavy burdens; 
let the oppressed go free." Micah: "What doth the 
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Tre- 
mendous teaching, and as true and valuable for our 
day as for their own. A man thinks he can cover up 
a dishonest trade by a gift to a missionary society ; 
or an impure life of sensual indulgence by occasional 
fasting and prayer ; or some injustice or neglect or 
malice toward his fellow-men, by more fervent wor- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. %fi 

ship toward God ; but these ancient preachers of 
righteousness, thundering forth their warnings and 
denunciations, disturb that dangerous self-deception. 
" To obey is better than to sacrifice." " What doth the 
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love 
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 

The inevitable result of such teaching, such deep un- 
folding of the law, was to produce in Israel a deeper 
consciousness of sin. The law of Moses itself has 
shown that people the difference between right and 
wrong ; but now the prophet, interpreting the law, 
and revealing these eternal principles of righteousness 
under the changing garments of ceremony, first makes 
Israel see the dreadful hatefulness of wrong, and also 
first fully awakens the conscience of the people to their 
own sinfulness. Left to themselves they almost fan- 
cied that they were keeping the law. Just observe 
the multitude of their sacrifices, their burnt-offerings, 
their incense, their new moons and Sabbaths, their 
calling of assemblies. What a righteous nation they 
are ! But the prophet cries out : " These things are an 
abomination unto me ; when ye make many prayers, 
I will not hear: your hands are full of blood." By 
enforcing, then, the spirituality of the law, the prophet 
awakened the people to a vivid sense of sin. 

But he carried this awakening of conscience still 
further, by recalling and interpreting to them their 
own national history, holding up against the sinful- 



172 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 

ness of the people the marvellous favor of their God. 
God calls His people to a reasoning with Himself: 
" O my people, what have I done unto thee ? and 
wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me." 
" I have nourished and brought up children, and they 
have rebelled against me ; the ox knoweth his owner, 
and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not 
know, my people doth not consider." And that other 
passage from Isaiah, which has been noticed on a for- 
mer evening : " What could have been done more to 
my vineyard, that I have not done in it ? Wherefore, 
when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, 
brought it forth wild grapes?" 

And in this connection arises that wonderful figure 
employed by so many of the prophets to express 
God's condescending love for Israel, the figure of be- 
trothal. The covenant into which God entered with 
His people at Sinai was a covenant of marriage: and 
hence to all its other sins this disobedient nation has 
added the shame of an unfaithful wife. " I remem- 
ber," saith the Lord, " the kindness of thy youth, the 
love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me 
in the wilderness." " Turn, O backsliding children, 
. . . . for I am married unto you." " I will even be- 
troth thee unto me in faithfulness." " For thou shalt 
forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remem- 
ber the reproach of thy widowhood any more. For 
thy Maker is thine husband." 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 173 

Thus the prophets delight to dwell upon God's 
love and forbearance and tenderness toward His 
disobedient people, toward His unfaithful bride ; 
until at last they who had been proud and confident 
in their own righteousness are driven to confess : 
" We are all as an unclean thing, and all our right- 
eousnesses are as filthy rags." Then from this sense 
of sin and shame the prophets are able to lead the 
people to a humble dependence upon the gracious 
promises of God : and that dependence is faith. 
" Thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob ; but thou 
hast been weary of me, O Israel. ... I, even I, am 
He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own 
sake, and will not remember thy sins''; " Return unto 
me, for I have redeemed thee" (Is. xliii. 22, 25 ; xliv. 
22). Yes, as St. Paul declares in the words of our 
text, Isaiah is very bold in affirming God's long- 
continued goodness to a disobedient and gainsaying 
people. 

These, then, are prominent elements of the pro- 
phetic teaching; an unfolding of the moral and spirit- 
ual principles of God's law ; the enforcing of those 
principles upon the conscience of the people by the 
review of God's goodness to them, so that they at 
last should confess their sin and shame ; and then the 
declaring of God's redeeming and pardoning love, 
that Israel, no longer confident in themselves, may 
find hope in God. 



174 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 



But this last thought leads us to another feature 
Of the prophetic teaching, in some respects most 
wonderful of all. Israel has been sinning against 
God's grace, breaking His covenant, transgressing 
His law, frustrating His kind purposes : and yet God 
will not suffer His purposes to be finally broken 
through : He will remember His word which He 
spake to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And so these 
prophets are always men of the future (our own mis- 
understanding of the name rests on this basis of 
truth). Their golden age is not back, in the days of 
Abraham, or of David ; but forward, in that time 
when God shall visit and redeem His people. Israel 
broke his former covenant ; they transgressed that 
law written on tables of stone ; but " the days come, 
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant 
with the house of Israel. ... I will put my law in 
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts : and 
will be their God, and they shall be my people " (Jer. 
xxxi. 31, 33). 

And by what means, by what kind of Saviour, 
shall God work out this salvation ? I do hot believe 
that the prophets could have answered clearly : but 
they do offer marvellous fragments of an answer. 
Now it is the Son of David, " the anointed one, 
who shall judge the people with righteousness, and 
the poor with judgment " (Ps. lxxii.). Now it is a 
child born unto us, " whose name shall be called 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 175 

Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Ever- 
lasting Father, the Prince of Peace " (Is. ix. 6). Now 
it is a son born of a virgin, "whose name shall be 
called Immanuel " (Is. vii. 14). Now it is the ser- 
vant of God, " whose visage is marred more than any 
man, and his form more than the sons of men"; 
" who was wounded for our transgressions and 
bruised for our iniquities "; " who was led as a sheep 
to the slaughter, and opened not His mouth " (Is. Hi. 
liii.). Now it is a conqueror coming from Edom, 
" glorious in his apparel, speaking in righteousness, 
mighty to save ; one who had trodden the wine- 
press alone " (Is. lxiii.). Such are the glimpses which 
the prophets offer of the coming One, by whom God 
will visit and redeem His people. And to some ex- 
tent the people understood the promise. Losing 
confidence in their own strength, they learned to 
cherish the hope of this deliverer whom God would 
send, the anointed one, the Messiah. 

With that Messianic promise fully spoken, the mis- 
sion of prophecy was ended, the voice of prophecy 
ceased. 

That was historically, then, the work of the prophets 
for Israel. But, my friends, has not the thought been 
rising in your minds that in all these things the long 
history of Israel shows itself a type of every man's 
life ? Has not each one of us heard at the outset 
that voice of Moses, of the law ? Right and wrong, 



176 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 

we all have some sense of it, for that sense stands 
at the beginning of moral agency. A voice makes 
itself heard within, possibly before we have ever learn- 
ed the meaning of human speech, and says : " Thou 
shalt do this : thou shalt not do that." But as yet 
this law occupies little space in our thoughts ; for we 
suppose that we are obeying it well enough ; we ex- 
pect to obey it, and to be justified in our obedience. 
. But soon the discipline of experience, and the deeper 
teachings of this prophetic book of Scripture, or of 
good men, God's modern prophets, convince us that 
we have failed to obey ; that we have fallen short of 
that righteousness ; that we are sinful and needy and 
lonely. And so we are made to long for some one 
who will take away our sinfulness, and purify our 
hearts, and satisfy our loneliness, and meet all these 
hungerings of the soul. In other words, the prophet 
has spoken, and has set us looking for a Messiah. 

But will He come? that is another question. Shall 
we believe the prophet ? Not very heartily, I fear, 
so long as his promise remains unfulfilled. If you 
should cut the New Testament out of our Bibles, and 
take just these older Scriptures of the Jews ; the law 
and the prophets and the Psalms ; not many of us 
Gentiles would be able to believe them inspired of 
God. A few perhaps, here and there ; about as many 
proselytes as were gained from heathen nations before 
the coming of Christ. But the great world would 



THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 177 

never be convinced. We should wonder at those 
books ; burdened by our sense of guilt and need, we 
should often read those promises, and wish they might 
be true. But believe them ? — a very different matter. 
My friends, the reason why these Hebrew Scriptures 
are so rapidly winning the nations to faith, is because 
their promises have been fulfilled. It is the vision of 
that Christ who has come, that Immanuel, God with 
us, which has begun to convert the world to a belief 
in this Word of God. Our sure faith begins with the 
fulfilment : and so the critical study of the Bible, 
which comes last, according to the order of the books, 
is by all means the first in vital importance, — the 
study of those books of the New Testament which 
have preserved among men the knowledge of His 
actual coming, the coming of that Jesus which is call- 
ed Christ. 

I shall hope soon to continue with you that more 
important department of our study. Ah ! but we 
must not, we need not wait for these tedious pro- 
cesses of study to be completed before we begin to 
believe. Have you found Him, this Jesus of whom 
Moses in the law and the prophets did write? If 
you have, thank God. If you have not, then look 
upon Him, for He has come ; He has opened the 
heavens to man ; He has brought the forgiveness of 
sins ; He has written God's law in multitudes of 
hearts ; He is among us here, inviting our faith and 
8* 



178 THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS. 

love. It is in the light of His revelation that we 
have been studying those ancient prophecies. And 
have we not partly recognized His voice speaking 
through them ? Even the least believing of us, have 
not our hearts burned within us while He has talked 
with us, and opened to us the Scriptures ? 



XI. 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set 
forth in order a declaration of those things 
which are most surely believed among us." — 
Luke i. i. 

Last Sunday we examined the origin of all the 
books of our New Testament except the three Epis- 
tles of John, the four Gospels, and the Acts. With 
these exceptions, as it appeared, our New Testament 
books were written before the year 70 A.D. : all but 
three of Paul's Epistles, and also the Epistle of 
James, coming before the persecution by Nero in 64 ; 
while Paul's remaining Epistles to Timothy and Titus, 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistles of Peter and 
of Jude, and the Revelation of John, were written 
after that persecution, but before the destruction of 
Jerusalem in 70. 

That date brings us now to the formation of a 
group of books, more interesting in some respects 
than any others in the New Testament, more inter- 
esting than any others in the World — those four Gos- 
pels which tell us nearly all that we know of the life 
and words of Jesus Christ Himself. It is not hard to 

(179) 



i8o 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 



see why these historical books of the New Testament, 
though now so unspeakably precious to us, were 
among the last to be written. They relate facts 
which became commonly known to the believers of 
that earliest time in another way, by the spoken 
narrative of the apostles, constantly repeated every- 
where in all Christian assemblies. The parables, the 
sermon on the mount, the last supper, the story of 
the betrayal — these were all household words in that 
first household of faith. Therefore the need of writ- 
ing was felt first, not in connection with the historical 
facts, but in connection with the application of Chris- 
tianity — questions of practical conduct, such as mar- 
riage with unbelievers, the eating of meat offered to 
idols, the exercise of Christian liberality, etc. The 
first Christian writings were called forth in answer to 
such questions of conduct, or else in answer to those 
deep questions of doctrinal belief which the known 
facts of the Gospel must always suggest to the mind 
of men. But the facts themselves as yet rested on no 
written testimony : they were the common property 
of the Church, being related everywhere by apostles, 
and lovingly repeated after them by all believers. 

But that spoken Gospel spread through the world 
with great rapidity. Within a few years there were 
many more churches than apostles : and the distances 
separating these churches rapidly increased. At first 
the problem had been only to instruct a few compa- 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 181 

nies of believers in Judea and Samaria. But now, 
after twenty or thirty years, these Christian compa- 
nies are found in all the more important towns bor- 
dering the Mediterranean, as far as Italy. Thus the 
demand for apostolic witnesses was fast exceeding 
the supply. 

But, moreover, this increase of demand was even 
attended by a diminution of the supply. James, 
the son of Zebedee, had been martyred by Herod 
long ago : now probably James, the Lord's brother, 
was put to death ; and soon came the horrors of 
Nero's great persecution ; and closely following it 
the martyrdom of Peter and of Paul. And still 
the Lord delayed His coming : and still, for her 
knowledge of Him, the Church depended, as at the 
first, upon this testimony of these men who had walked 
with Him while He walked the earth. And now 
these witnesses, all well advanced in years, were fail- 
ing asleep in such quick succession. We can under- 
stand, can we not, the apprehension which would 
seize the Christians, and especially the Christian 
teachers of that younger generation. We can hear 
their anxious inquiry : " What if all the Fathers 
should fall asleep, and Christ still delay His coming, 
and we be left to our own uncertain memory of what 
they have related to us, and to our own ill-estab- 
lished authority for instruction ? " 

Now we find clear traces of just such solicitude in 



THE SYN0PT70 GOSPELS. 



the writings which remain to us from that time. 
Remember that probably none of our Gospels had 
yet been written, and then read the first chapter of 
Peter's first Epistle : " That the trial of your faith 
might be found unto praise at the appearing of Jesus 
Christ, whom not having seen ye love ; . . . . where- 
fore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
hope to the end. .... All flesh is as grass, but the 
word of the Lord endureth forever : this word which 
was preached unto you." What fatherly care for 
them breathes through those solemn sentences ! Or 
still more clearly in his second Epistle : " I will not 
be negligent to put you always in remembrance ; as 
long as I am in this tabernacle, I stir you up by put- 
ting you in remembrance. I will endeavor that ye 
may be able after my decease to have these things 
always in remembrance." 

Perhaps in the very same year with this second 
Epistle we find Paul writing to Timothy : " Shun 
profane and vain babblings, for they will increase 
unto more ungodliness : who have erred and over- 
thrown the faith of some : in the last day perilous 
times shall come. But continue thou in the things 
which thou hast learned." 

Or again we turn to that other letter of this same 
time, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and there we read : 
" Remember them that had the rule over you, which 
spake unto you the word of God ; and considering 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 



183 



the issue of their life, imitate their faith." From all 
sides this same tone of anxiety, the authorized wit- 
nesses to Jesus, these human channels of the word of 
God, are passing away. The Church suddenly awakes 
to her urgent need of some perpetual witness, of some 
more enduring embodiment for this last and best 
word of God, this Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Then to supply that need, men began to take pen 
in hand and to write down in enduring form what they 
had before been content merely to hear and to speak. 
We are safe in affirming that this impulse to put a 
record of the life of Christ into writing made itself 
felt very noticeably in that last period which we have 
reached, between the years 65 and 70, and also that 
this was a general impulse ; the common and urgent 
need impelling many at the same time to the same 
undertaking. For Luke, in the opening sentence of 
his Gospel, the passage taken for our text, says (Rev. 
Version) : * Forasmuch as many have taken in hand 
to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which 
have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered 
them unto us, which from the beginning were eye- 
witnesses and ministers of the word." You see, many 
had made this same attempt to put into writing the 
narrative of Christ learned from the apostles. 

Among those written Gospels which Luke had seen 
we may quite probably include our own Gospel of 
Mark ; but certainly neither of the others that we now 



1 84 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

possess, neither Matthew in its present form, nor 
John. 

These many records seem to have passed away 
quickly, being supplanted by the three completer and 
more authoritative writings which we now possess, the 
so-called Synoptical Gospels, by Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke. The question now faces us, when and how did 
these three Gospels come into being? The question 
has proved a somewhat difficult one, because of the 
peculiar relation of these three books to each other. 
The problem is this : here are three books whose sen- 
tences in many passages are so nearly identical, that 
one author would seem to have copied from the other: 
but whose statements in other passages are so very 
different that each author must be considered igno- 
rant of the other narrative. For instances of resem- 
blance take the parables of the new piece in the old 
garment, and the new wine in the old bottles, which 
are almost word for word the same in all three Gos- 
pels (Matt. ix. 1 6, 17 ; Mark ii. 21, 22 ; Luke v. 36-38) ; 
or the familiar passage beginning, " If any man will 
come after me let him deny himself" (Matt. xvi. 24- 
26; Mark viii. 34-37; Luke ix. 23-25). 

As an example of the differences, notice the very 
different connections in which Matthew and Luke in- 
troduce many of our Lord's best known discourses ; 
or the different accounts of His nativity, when Mat- 
thew seems to think that Joseph and Mary had previ- 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 185 

ously lived in Bethlehem, and changed their residence 
to Nazareth because of Herod's cruelty ; while Luke is 
aware that they had previously lived in Nazareth, and 
had gone up to Bethlehem to be enrolled, while he, 
in turn, seems ignorant of the murder of the innocents, 
and the flight into Egypt. We believe that both 
accounts are true ; but I think any candid reader 
will admit that neither of these writers seems to have 
known all the facts related by the other. Now, it 
might be easy enough to account either for these dif- 
ferences among the Gospels, or for their resemblances ; 
but every one must recognize the difficulty of account- 
ing at the same time for both the differences and the 
resemblances. 

There have been two attempts at an explanation 
which are worthy of notice : one, that there was a 
written Gospel older than any of ours, and copied to 
some extent by each of these writers ; which theory 
goes by the name of Eichhorn, who first propounded 
it : while the other explanation has made much of that 
spoken narrative which, as we have seen reason to be- 
lieve, took shape among the earliest disciples at Jeru- 
salem under the immediate oversight of the apostles. 
Our three evangelists all being familiar with that com- 
mon oral narrative, and at the same time possessing 
each some independent means of information, might, 
it is supposed, have produced just the resemblances 
and differences which we find in their works. Now, 



1 86 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

Luke's words in our text make it seem probable that 
both these forms of explanation are partly true. The 
oral tradition was a common possession through the 
Church ; while there had also been various attempts 
older than these Gospels, to write that oral tradition 
down in definite and permanent form ; with which at- 
tempts Luke, at least, confesses himself familiar. 

Bearing in mind these difficulties of the problem, 
we ask again what can be known, or fairly inferred, 
as to the origin of our three Gospels? I will speak 
first of Mark, which is now commonly supposed to be 
the oldest of the three. Papias, whom we have men- 
tioned before as living early in the second century, 
declares that Mark, having become the recorder of 
Peter's words, wrote down accurately, though with- 
out regular order, what he recollected of the sayings 
and deeds of Christ. Justin Martyr, of about the 
same date, quoting a sentence from Mark, asserts that 
it is found in the memoirs of Peter. Universal tra- 
dition confirms these statements, and justifies us in 
believing that Peter's teachings were written down by 
Mark : the John Mark, in whose mother's house at 
Jerusalem the disciples were gathered praying for 
Peter, when he interrupted them by knocking at the 
door: the John Mark over whom Paul and Barnabas 
quarrelled, because Paul thought it not good to take 
with them one who had turned back from the work 
on their earlier missionary journey : the Mark of 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 



I8 7 



whom Paul wrote many years afterward to Timothy : 
" He is profitable to me for the ministry," having 
learned by that time that he was a true " fellow-labor- 
er " : the Mark of whom Peter also in his first Epistle 
speaks as " my son." This was the man who, from 
his intimate association with Peter, was able to record 
Peter's testimonies to the works and words of Christ. 

As to the date of this writing, there is no good 
reason for doubting the oldest tradition, that re- 
corded by Irenaeus, which declares that Mark wrote 
it after the death of Peter. There seem to be indi- 
cations in the language of the Gospel itself, that the 
destruction of Jerusalem had not yet been accom- 
plished, though it was hastening. Our three Gospels 
all dwell at great length on Christ's predictions of the 
destruction of Jerusalem, proving that that topic was 
near enough to fill a very large place in the minds of 
writers and readers (you remember that John's Gos- 
pel, written many years afterward, omits those pre- 
dictions altogether). But while the language of Mat- 
thew and Luke in several places seems to indicate 
that the fall of the Holy City was just past, and its 
awful details familiar (Matt. xxii. 7 ; Luke xix. 43, 44), 
and that the times of the Gentiles were now to be 
fulfilled (Luke xxi. 24) : the language of Mark, on the 
other hand, seems to imply that these awful events 
were just coming. "The fig-tree was even then put- 
ting forth leaves " (xiii. 28), they must know that sum- 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 



mer was nigh. " Let him that readeth understand." 
Taken in connection with the statement which we 
have heard from Irenaeus, the phraseology of this 
13th chapter of Mark makes it very probable that 
this Gospel was written in the year 69 or 70, at the 
time when the Roman armies were gathering about 
Jerusalem. 

The language of the Gospel confirms also another 
ancient tradition, viz., that it was written in Rome 
and for Romans. We may conclude, then, that soon 
after the martyrdom of Peter, his spiritual father, 
John Mark carefully committed to writing the well- 
remembered testimonies of that great apostle. May 
it be that Peter himself, before his death, had sug- 
gested this work to his beloved disciple ; and that we 
are thus to understand those words which I have al- 
ready quoted from the second Epistle of Peter: 
" Moreover, I will endeavor that ye may be able after 
my decease to have these things always in remem- 
brance " ? 

It should be said that the concluding verses of the 
last chapter of Mark's Gospel, from the 9th verse on, 
do not appear in the oldest MSS., and were probably 
added by some later writer : also that many suppose 
the nameless young man mentioned in the 14th chap- 
ter, who followed Jesus at His arrest, and then fled, 
leaving his linen garment in their hands, to have been 
none other than the evangelist Mark himself. 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 189 

We come now to the Gospel which stands first in 
our Canon, and which goes by the name of the apos- 
tle Matthew. What can we learn as to its origin ? 
You will observe that the Gospel itself makes no 
claim as to its own authorship ; and in this respect 
the three earlier Gospels are alike, and all differ from 
the fourth, which expressly claims to have been writ- 
ten by the disciple whom Jesus loved. The first 
three are anonymous, unless the titles placed before 
them are taken as part of the original book : " Gospel 
according to Matthew, according to Mark," etc. Still 
this title to Matthew is found in the oldest existing 
MSS. ; and it corresponds also with the most ancient 
traditions, which declare that the earliest Gospel writ- 
ten was by the apostle Matthew. 

But here we encounter a difficulty: our Matthew 
is a Greek writing, like all the other books of the 
New Testament ; and most scholars have been satis- 
fied that it was never anything else — i. e., our Greek 
Matthew offers many proofs that it is an original 
work, not a mere translation ; but that same ancient 
tradition, which affirms confidently that the earliest 
Gospel written was by the apostle Matthew, affirms 
with equal confidence that he wrote it in Hebrew. 
The oldest testimony remaining is from Papias, whom 
we have already heard from on other subjects, and 
who declares that " Matthew wrote the sayings [mean- 
ing the sayings of our Lord] in the Hebrew dialect, 



T 9 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

and each man translated them as he was able." 
Later writers of that period confirm this statement 
of Papias. It should be said that what he means by 
Hebrew is the Aramaic, the dialect akin to Hebrew 
spoken by the Jews of Palestine at that time, and 
the language in which our Lord Himself had been 
accustomed to speak. 

The questions to be answered, therefore, are : 
What has become of that Aramaic Gospel? and by 
what right is our Greek Gospel attributed to Mat- 
thew? We may never be able to answer with abso- 
lute certainty ; but I will give you such facts as seem 
to be making themselves clear. Irenaeus says that 
Matthew wrote when Peter and Paul were (Weiss' 
"Life of Christ," p. 38) preaching the Gospel and 
founding the Church at Rome ; that would imply a 
date between 65 and 68. Eusebius says that Mat- 
thew, when he departed from Palestine, bequeathed 
his Gospel to the Hebrews as a substitute for his 
oral preaching. But we may suppose that the apos- 
tles left Palestine at the outbreak of the war against 
Rome, which was in 66. We have also learned from 
Papias that Matthew wrote the sayings in Hebrew. 
Hence we conclude that about the year 66 or 67 
Matthew wrote his Aramaic Gospel, w r hich consisted 
quite largely of the collected discourses of our Lord. 

Then, at some later time, some other Jewish writer, 
having access also to other sources of information, 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. jgi 

very likely to our Gospel of Mark, transferred the 
substance of Matthew's work into Greek, adding here 
and there from these other sources. It was not a 
strict translation ; and yet the older work had been 
so thoroughly incorporated in the new, that the old 
was afterward suffered to pass out of use, and at last 
out of existence, while the name of Matthew was 
transferred to the new. This Greek Gospel was still 
designed for Jews, but for Jews living away from 
Palestine, not accustomed to the Aramaic language, 
and not very familiar with the manners or the topog- 
raphy of the Holy Land. The date of this Greek 
work would be not long after 70 A.D., not very much 
later than Mark. This view, with some modifications, 
is now held by the great English scholar Westcott, 
and by the great German scholar Weiss. 

It is interesting to notice, even in this secondary 
Greek Gospel, what seem like faint traces of the 
handiwork of Matthew the publican. This Gospel, 
for one thing, is the only one which gives (x. 3) him 
that title. As if with the silence of modesty, it omits 
the story of Zacchaeus, the publican whom Christ 
honored ; and also the parable of the penitent publi- 
can ; but it does contain Christ's saying, nowhere else 
recorded, " The publicans and the harlots go into the 
kingdom of God before you." Our Greek Gospel 
also resembles that Aramaic original in being largely 
devoted to the collected discourses of Christ. 



1 92 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

We pass now to the third Gospel, that according 
to Luke ; or it will be better to take the Gospel and 
the Acts together as two volumes in one historical 
work. For studying this work we possess the advan- 
tage of the formal introductory sentence, in which 
the author declares the sources and method and pur- 
pose of its composition. The author does not state 
his own name ; but since the time of Irenaeus tradi- 
tion has unanimously identified him with the Luke 
mentioned in Paul's epistles — " the beloved physi- 
cian," as Paul calls him. It is interesting to notice 
that in the two other references, his name is associ- 
ated with that of Mark. " Marcus, Lucas," and sev- 
eral others " send salutations to Philemon "; while 
Paul writes to Timothy, " Only Luke is with me. 
Take Mark and bring him with thee." It is supposed 
also that in the second Epistle to the Corinthians 
(viii. 1 8), where Paul says, " We have sent with (Ti- 
tus) the brother whose praise is in the Gospel through- 
out all the churches," he refers to Luke ; for the an- 
cient subscription to that second epistle declares 
that " it was written from Philippi by Titus and Lu- 
cas. 

Luke's name occurs nowhere else in the New 
Testament, but we gain very interesting information 
about him from the book of the Acts. You may 
have noticed that the language of that narrative 
changes back and forth several times between the 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 193 

third and first persons. Now, wherever the first per- 
son is used, we know that Luke himself was one of 
the company. By this means we are informed that 
he joined Paul at Troas in the second missionary 
journey (xvi. 10) just after his Macedonian vision, 
and accompanied him to Philippi (about A.D. 51). 
Here they separated (xvii. 1). But we find them 
coming together again at this same place some seven 
years later (xx. 5). And thence Luke accompanies 
Paul in his last journey to Jerusalem, and in his voy- 
age to Rome. From these indications we know that 
Luke was a Gentile Christian, a physician, a fellow- 
laborer with Paul, and, therefore, in sympathy with 
his general views of doctrine. We know also that 
he possessed more thorough command of the Greek 
language than the other New Testament writers, the 
opening sentence of his Gospel being a true classical 
period. 

As to the date of writing, many scholars formerly 
reasoned that the Acts must have been written about 
the time when its narrative ends — with Paul's first 
imprisonment in Rome (about 63 A.D.), while the 
Gospel must be several years older. But this opinion 
seems not well founded. We may rather conclude 
that our historian ended the narrative of the Acts 
abruptly at that point, because it was not safe to 
continue. The narrative brings us down almost to 
the frightful persecution under Nero ; to have con- 
9 



I 9 4 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

tinued a history of that persecution would have 
been to tempt the Roman Government to new atroc- 
ities. 

Even at a much earlier period, before any persecu- 
tion had been offered, we can see in the purposely 
obscure language of 2d Thessalonians how careful 
the Christians were not to compromise themselves 
with the Roman Government. " Only he who now 
letteth will let," Paul says, " until he be taken out of 
the way " (ii. 7) ; as if to say : " You know what I 
mean by these words, but others may make of them 
what sense they can." But how much greater the 
need of caution when the fury of persecution had 
already burst forth. As Canon Farrar says (" Early 
Christianity," p. 46) : " The Jew and the Christian who 
entered on such themes could only do so under the 
disguise of a cryptograph, hiding his meaning from 
all but the initiated few in such prophetic symbols as 
those of the Apocalypse. In that book alone we are 
enabled to hear the cry of horror which Nero's brutal 
cruelties wrung from Christian hearts." 

Thus there was reason enough why the narrative 
of the Acts should end abruptly just where it does end, 
even though it might be written at a much later date. 
And many considerations render it almost certain 
that this third Gospel was written, in fact, a little 
after the destruction of Jerusalem ; later than Mark, 
probably later even than our Greek Matthew, some- 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 195 

where between 70 and 80 A.D. The book of the Acts 
was evidently written after the Gospel. 

As to the aim and the readers of this Gospel, it was 
written by a Gentile and for Gentiles ; while personal 
traces of the author, the beloved physician, may ap- 
pear in his use of technical terms for diseases, and in 
the saying which he alone records, " Physician, heal 
thyself." We noticed in the first Gospel what may 
be taken as personal traces of Matthew the publican ; 
while the second Gospel, in its vivid descriptions, 
especially in its accurate knowledge of matters per- 
taining to the sea, seems to give an echo from the 
voice of Peter the fisherman. 

Now, a little more generally as to the several con- 
tents of these three books. Mark, the briefest, and, 
as we have seen reason to believe, the earliest ; writ- 
ten by a Jew, but for the Romans, and reflecting the 
personality of Peter, who from the first had partly 
ministered to Gentiles, presents Jesus in the simplest 
way as the Son of God, the doer of mighty works, 
the founder of a divine kingdom on earth. 

Matthew, written by a Jew and for Jews, presents 
Jesus as the Messiah of Israel, the son of David ; 
constantly calls attention to the fulfilment of proph- 
ecy in the events of His life ; traces His descent from 
David and Abraham ; dates His birth by the reign 
of Herod, King of the Jews. While Luke, written 
not only for Gentiles, but by a Gentile and a fellow- 



196 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

laborer with Paul, presents Jesus as the Saviour of 
the world ; traces His descent from Adam ; dates 
His birth by the reign of Augustus, emperor of the 
world ; dwells especially on the teaching of God's 
love for sinful men. Those wonderful parables, the 
two debtors, the good Samaritan, the lost piece of 
money, the prodigal son, are found in Luke only ; 
also the parable of the self-righteous Pharisee and the 
penitent publican, " who went down to his house jus- 
tified rather than the other." We can well understand 
how the associates of Paul should have cherished 
those particular parables most carefully. We may 
also notice that Luke's narrative of the Lord s Sup- 
per corresponds most closely with that given by Paul 
in his letter to the Corinthians. Taking the third 
Gospel and the Acts together, we have a history of 
that preaching of salvation which began with the life 
of Christ in Palestine, but which was carried thence 
into all the world. 

I have spoken of these Gospels as written severally 
for several different classes of readers : — Mark espe- 
cially for the Church at Rome. — Matthew for the 
Jewish Christians — the original Aramaic for those in 
Palestine ; the later Greek transcript for the converts 
among the Jews of the dispersion, — Luke for the 
Gentile churches founded by Paul. But with the 
destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple, and the 
enforced cessation of sacrifice, those reasons which 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 197 

had held the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Chris- 
tians apart passed away. Thus, in the words of 
Weiss, " Early in the second century we see how the 
Gospel of the Jewish Christians, together with that 
of the Gentile Christians, and along with the Mark- 
Gospel which lies at the foundation of both, were a 
common possession in the great collective church." 

We have still remaining one group of writings to 
examine, the later works of that disciple whom Jesus 
loved, and who was spared to the Church for many 
years after all the other apostles had passed away. 
That topic will demand an evening to itself. 

But as we recall now the course of our study hith- 
erto, must we not thank God that He has preserved 
to us through the ages this clear and many-sided 
picture of Christ's ministry? Anxious Christians 
have been troubled not a little sometimes because 
the view was so many-sided ; because our three wit- 
nesses do not tell their story in just the same words. 
Matthew tells us that Jesus healed two blind men, as 
He was going out of Jericho : and Luke would have 
it that He healed one as He was going into Jericho : 
while Mark's story differs somewhat from both. Let 
us thank God, I say, that the pictures are different ; 
that different witnesses have recorded truthfully their 
various impressions, as they remembered them ; that 
so by these varying accounts the earthly ministry of 
Christ may be reproduced before us distinctly and 



198 THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 

completely, almost as if we saw with our own eyes, 
and heard with our own ears. 

But remember that in God's world great privilege 
means always accountability. " Woe unto thee, 
Chorazin ; woe unto thee, Bethsaida ; for if the 
mighty works which have been done in you had been 
done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented 
long ago." Those words might be spoken to the in- 
habitants of many a modern city with still greater 
emphasis. For by the clear testimony of these 
books, and by the accumulating experience of Chris- 
tian ages, our own opportunity of understanding and 
accepting the word of Christ is better than that of 
His ancient hearers. What shall be said to us, then, 
if we leave the dust to gather on these sacred vol- 
umes; or if we merely open them now and then from 
habit, to read, without thought or feeling, some spec- 
ified portion ? As if the Lord Himself were teaching 
in our streets, and we could not find time or patience 
to hear Him through ? 

No, we have been learning about those kind provi- 
dences of God by which these books were written, and 
have been preserved for our instruction ; and I hope 
that this study may dispose us to value them more 
highly ; to search them as for hid treasure ; to dig into 
them for that foundation on which our faith and our 
life-work may be firmly established. The Gospel being 
furnished, it is for us to study and to know whom we 



THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS. 199 

have believed ; to know also what the will of the 
Lord is. Having this opportunity to learn, we may 
be expected to know. " I write unto thee," Luke 
continues in his preface, " most excellent Theophi- 
lus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those 
things wherein thou hast been instructed." 



XII. 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 

" But these are written, that ye might believe that 
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God : and that 
believing, ye might have life through His 
name." — John xx. 31. 

We are now to study the fourth Gospel, and those 
three Epistles which also go by the name of John. 
Every reader of the Gospels must have felt that the 
fourth stands apart from the rest. The other three 
differ among themselves in some minor details ; still, 
if I should read any of their chapters at random, 
probably not one in ten of you could tell from which 
Gospel I was reading. But a chapter, or even a 
single verse from John, generally identifies itself at 
once. Not much study is needed to show that this 
peculiarity of manner is attended by striking pecu- 
liarities of matter: this fourth evangelist not only 
tells his story in a different way, but we might almost 
think that he was telling a different story. The 
others tell us of a mission in Galilee, interrupted 
only when Jesus went up to Jerusalem for that last 
Passover, at which He was crucified. John tells us 

of a mission whose prominent scenes from the very 

(200) 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



201 



first were most of them in Jerusalem, while Christ's 
work in Galilee might seem to have been brief and 
comparatively unimportant. 

Moreover, not only the field and duration of 
Christ's ministry, but even the style of His teaching, 
has been changed. His sayings, as we read them in 
the earlier Gospels, have been well compared to 
"strings of pearls, every pearl by itself, and only 
joined together by a thought common to all." But 
in John we find long, connected, profound discourses, 
carefully elaborating some one truth by a long pro- 
cess of discussion. The graphic parables have given 
way to mysterious allegories. Thus, from the earliest 
times, readers of the Gospels have felt that the fourth 
differed strangely from the other three. 

Another strange fact which also claims our atten- 
tion is the difference between this Gospel of John 
and the Revelation ; the Revelation, that book of 
wrath, in every word of which we seem to hear 
speaking the Son of Thunder, who wished to call 
down fire on a certain Samaritan village and destroy 
them, as Elias did ; the Gospel, which founds itself, as 
one might say, on the assertion that " God so loved 
the world." For these two reasons, — because the 
fourth Gospel differs so widely from the other nar- 
ratives of Christ's ministry, and also because the 
fourth Gospel differs so widely from that Revelation 
which professes to have been written by the same 
9* 



202 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



apostle John ; therefore, skeptical scholarship for 
the last generation or so has denied that this fourth 
Gospel could have been written by John, or by any 
other witness of Christ's life : affirming that it was 
rather a doctrinal treatise against the Gnostic heresy, 
and composed late in the second century. 

Really, my friends, this has been for some time the 
burning question of Biblical controversy. Once prove 
that a personal follower of Christ wrote this fourth 
Gospel, and you overthrow without another word the 
larger part of all that has been said or written against 
Christianity for the last half century. Now, you will 
remember that in our study of a few weeks ago, we 
saw how the discovery of new MSS. and all the other 
progress of critical investigation has forced back the 
date of this, as of the other Gospels, further and fur- 
ther toward the apostolic age. So far as external 
evidence was concerned, therefore, we felt ourselves 
justified in leaving controversy aside, and accepting 
these books for what they profess to be, and what the 
Church has always supposed them to be. Really, the 
divergence of this fourth Gospel from the others is 
no argument against it ; but, on the other hand, a 
very strong proof that the Church knew it to be the 
work of the apostle : for how else could the churches 
of that earliest age have accepted without question, 
— as we now know that they did accept, — a Gospel 
which differed so widely in many respects from the 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 203 

older Gospels in which they had all been instructed ? 
The only explanation is, that this last Gospel brought 
them the unquestionable testimony of John himself. 

We feel justified, therefore, by historic evidence, 
in confidently attributing this fourth Gospel, and also 
the first Epistle, to the hand of the apostle John. 
The external evidence to the second and third 
Epistles is comparatively slight ; which, however, 
need not surprise us, since, being addressed to in- 
dividuals, they would not be so quickly circulated 
among the churches. 

Who was this apostle ? 

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were fisher- 
men on the Sea of Galilee. They were among those 
who gathered about the Baptist when he began to 
baptize in the Jordan. It was John and Andrew 
who, hearing the Baptist say of Jesus, " Behold the 
lamb of God," immediately followed Jesus. There 
seems good reason for supposing that Salome, the 
mother of James and John (Matt, xxvii. 56; Mark 
xv. 40 ; John xix. 25), was the sister of Mary ; which 
would make these two young men cousins of our 
Lord. At all events, they and Peter were allowed 
a peculiar intimacy with Jesus. On certain most im- 
portant occasions, as the Transfiguration, the raising 
of the daughter of Jairus, and the scene in the Garden, 
these three alone were permitted to come with Him. 

Now, in the case of Peter, all the Gospels would 



204 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 

justify such prominence; for that man, by natural 
force of character, and by the impetuosity of his faith, 
placed himself foremost among the twelve. But the 
first three Gospels might hardly account for the 
special favor shown to John. On the only occasions 
where we find him doing anything to justify the 
prominence of his name, he is reproved by Christ : 
once when he reported : " Master, we saw one cast- 
ing out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us, 
and we forbade him "j again, when he and James 
" would have called down fire on the Samaritan 
village because it would not receive them and, 
again, " when they and their mother came asking that 
they might sit one on His right hand and one on His 
left in His kingdom." The narrowness, the fierce- 
ness, and the ambition revealed in these three in- 
stances, would hardly explain the special favor which 
Christ continually showed to this apostle. 

And yet, even after the death of Christ, this John 
still enjoys the same sort of special consideration 
among the disciples. Peter and John always appear 
side by side in service and in suffering and in confes- 
sion : this, although we are never told that John act- 
ually did anything, or said anything. More than four 
teen years afterward, when Paul went up to Jerusa- 
lem, he found John, with Peter and with the other 
James, still recognized as pillars (Gal. ii. 9). Thus 
we learn clearly enough, from various sources, that 



- THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 20$ 

John was an honored and influential man among 
the twelve : but we might be greatly puzzled to say- 
why he was so. 

The mystery is solved at once when we open this 
fourth Gospel. With infinite delicacy, without once 
mentioning his own name, the writer here lets us 
know that he was the disciple whom Jesus loved. 
There was a peculiar tenderness of mutual affection 
between this man and Jesus ; tacitly recognized, 
though perhaps not understood by the other apos- 
tles ; which, even without any of the more active 
manifestations of service, held this disciple always 
near his Lord. It was a tenderness of love not 
often disturbed by speech, unless to flash forth in 
anger against those who would injure his Lord ; or 
in jealousy against those who might have thought 
to supplant him in the Lord's affection. Otherwise, 
this man remained a silent, yet a most influential 
member of the apostolic company — an influential 
member then and afterward. For when Peter is 
about to heal the impotent man in the temple, the 
historian is careful to add : " and Peter fastening his 
eyes upon him, with John " — that silent participator 
in the miracle by no means to be overlooked. Some 
one has said that " Peter may fitly be called the lover 
of Christ, John the lover of Jesus : accordingly that 
the Lord commended His Church to the care of Pe- 
ter ; but His mother to the care of John." 



206 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



Some time after the destruction of Jerusalem, as 
tradition informs us, John came to Ephesus, where 
he spent the remainder of his life, dying a very old 
man, after the accession of Trajan in 98. The other 
apostles had long since passed away. That fierce 
conflict with a Judaizing party in the Church, which 
embittered Paul's life, and often threatened to split 
the Church itself in two, had been ended by the de- 
struction of the temple, and the forcible overthrow 
of the entire Jewish system. The expectation of the 
immediate end of the world, which had stimulated 
and disturbed the earlier Christians, was now growing 
fainter. 

But now the purity of the faith was threatened 
from another quarter ; by a kind of mystical phi- 
losophy which began to invade the churches, " the 
knowledge," as it called itself, " Gnosis"; developing 
a little later into the Gnostic heresy. This Gnosis 
was a strange anticipation of certain philosophical 
and religious notions of our own day, which we as- 
sociate with the name of Hegel. The Gnostics 
differed much among themselves ; but the one idea 
which pervades all their dreamy meditations is of a 
heavenly aeon — logos they sometimes call it — an em- 
anation from the unknown and unapproachable God ; 
this heavenly aeon coinciding sometimes with the 
man Jesus, but having nothing to do with His human 
life as such, His birth, His weaknesses and sufferings, 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 2 0J 

His death. Indeed, one form of Gnosticism, the Do- 
cetic, taught that the earthly body of Jesus was only 
an appearance — a phantasm, not a reality. 

These notions, though not yet so elaborately formu- 
lated as afterward, were beginning to show themselves 
among the churches of Asia. How they affected the 
mind of the aged John we may learn from the first epis- 
tle, which he wrote expressly with a view to opposing 
them. 'The body of Jesus only an appearance,' do 
you say? He begins his letter by affirming : "That 
which we have heard, which we have seen with our 
eyes, which our hands have handled of the word of 
life." " Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is 
the Christ ? " " Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus 
Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit 
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the 
flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of anti- 
Christ, whereof ye have heard that it should come : 
and even now already is it in the world." " This is 
He that came by water and blood." The sharpest 
statements, you see, of historical reality held up 
against the dreams of that new speculation. Thus 
the Epistle seems to have been written expressly in 
answer to those dangerous doctrines. 

Now, some have asserted that the Gospel was 
written with this same purpose ; but the assertion is 
made without sufficient reason. This most wonderful 
book lifts us far above the troubled regions of con- 



208 THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 

troversy. It is not an argument, but a witness. Still, 
we may be better able, no doubt, to understand the 
evangelist's teachings, if we bear in mind these errors 
which were rising about him when he wrote. 

But what was John's own purpose in writing? The 
churches possessed already, in threefold written form, 
that narrative of Christ's life which had been related 
by the apostles from the beginning — related by this 
John himself, together with the rest of the apostles. 
Why now, after so long a time, should John wish to 
put forward so different a history? Some have sup- 
posed that John wished from his own memory to 
correct and supplement the earlier Gospels, explaining 
more clearly the true order of events. But though 
the fourth Gospel does partially serve this purpose 
of explanation, we cannot well suppose this to have 
been John's own intention ; for it would have been 
so easy for him to make such explanation and correc- 
tion more effectually. As it is, w ? e find it very diffi- 
cult in many cases to say how his narrative can be 
brought into any connection with the others ; so far 
from harmonizing them, it only raises new and greater 
difficulties. 

No ; it is much better to let the evangelist state 
his own purpose, which he has done in the clearest 
terms. " Many other signs truly did Jesus in the 
presence of His disciples, which are not written in 
this book. But these are written, that ye might be- 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 209 

lieve that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and 
that believing, ye might have life through His name." 
There is the purpose. The simple facts of Christ's 
life and death and resurrection — such of them as it 
was needful to know — had long been known, and 
were already recorded in other Gospels. But the 
mere knowledge of those facts proved no longer 
able to sustain the faith of the Church. Whether we 
call it a progress or a retrogression, the Church had 
now gone beyond the unquestioning, childlike belief 
of her infancy. She was venturing out upon these 
unfathomable philosophical doctrines concerning the 
infinite and absolute ; and concerning the logos, or 
Christ, if you wish to call it so, that emanation from 
the infinite which comes down into the finite world 
of time. The old simple statements of historical fact 
about Jesus offer insufficient standing-ground to men 
beset by such bewildering speculations. Such and 
such things, you say, happened to the historic Jesus ; 
but we have now been swept into these profounder in- 
quiries about the eternal Christ, the eternal Word. 
What care we for finite history ? 

But, thank God, there still remained in the world 
one living witness to that historic Jesus. And if the 
Church had been thinking strange, new thoughts, so 
had he. If the Church had found herself confronted 
by the deeper questions of eternal being, he also had 
been learning the deeper significance of that divine life 



210 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



once lived in time. These had not been wasted years 
for him. Words heard so long before were only now 
unfolding their meaning in his mind. Through all 
these years, and in connection with all these new 
problems, the Spirit had been taking the things of 
Christ, and still revealing them to him, until, at last, 
this long silent disciple is about to speak ; to speak 
now not as the companion of some readier apostle, 
merely giving his countenance to the other's story, 
but to tell now, at last, his own story ; to declare those 
deepest truths concerning Jesus which his own pecu- 
liar love had been slowly revealing to him. 

This shall not be a controversy with the Gnostics, 
and yet it is the best possible refutation of their errors, 
for it is a statement of that deeper truth which they, 
reaching after, had missed. The eternal Christ, the 
Word, the Son of God, they were seeking; and, there- 
fore, they had turned away from that earthly Jesus 
who lived for a little while like other men, and then 
died. But here speaks one able to testify that that 
same historic Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of 
God. 

The Gospel of John was written, as we believe, at 
Ephesus, between the years 80 and 100. He is familiar, 
and assumes his readers to be familiar, with such facts 
and teachings as are recorded in the earlier Gospels. 
Thus he reports the Baptist as saying : " This is He of 
whom I spake, He that cometh after me," etc. Spake 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



211 



when ? John himself makes no record of such a speech. 
Evidently he has in mind other well-known records 
like our Matthew or Mark. Or again, when he speaks 
of the dove at Christ's baptism, or calls Christ the son 
of Joseph, or alludes to His mother, or His going 
down to Capernaum, without further explanation ; or 
to the Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment. 
In these and other places we can see how John takes 
it for granted that his readers knew the facts which 
all Christians knew, the facts reported in our other 
Gospels. Therefore he does not trouble himself to 
repeat those facts, except when they may bear upon 
his special purpose. He draws rather upon his own 
memory for such fresh material as he may put to best 
use in developing that deeper truth which he now 
wishes to declare. 

Any discission of the doctrine of the fourth Gospel 
would be aside from our present topic. I will merely 
call attention, in a word, to those features which most 
distinguish it from the other New Testament writings. 
He is to convince men, you remember, that Jesus is 
the Christ ; and the Christ in that more philosophi- 
cal sense which the term has now acquired among the 
Greek Christians of Asia ; not only the expected Mes- 
siah of the Jews, but the eternal Logos. And so his 
Gospel begins, not with a table of genealogy, either 
from Abraham or from Adam ; not with an account 
of the miraculous conception, or the birth at Bethle- 



212 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



hem, or any other event of human history. But we 
read: " In the beginning was the logos, the Word ; 
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ; 
.... and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us." The most ambitious Gnostic must feel that this 
writer has searched as far as he into the regions of the 
infinite and eternal. We shall find the whole Gospel 
an unfolding of that one declaration that " the eternal 
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us " the 
Word in whom was life, even the light of men." 

Ah, but life, light, the eternal Word? and this, you 
say, is the same Jesus who was mocked and scourged 
and crucified? How can that be? The eternal light 
and the darkness of Calvary in one person ? But lis- 
ten further: "The light shineth in darkness, and the 

darkness comprehended it not He came unto 

His own, and His own received Him not." And thus 
while our Gospel goes on to unfold that declaration 
that Jesus was the eternal Word made flesh, the 
eternal light shining upon earth ; yet it must tell at 
the same time how the darkness intensifies itself against 
the light, and tries to quench it. The whole book is 
a development of that antagonism which grows fiercer 
and fiercer until the end. 

You can see, if you compare John's Gospel with 
the others, that he has made no attempt to set down 
a full narrative of events. He chooses a few merely, 
a few miracles, a few discourses, such as will indicate 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 213 

most clearly this awful tragedy, the growing hatred 
of the Jews for Christ. The light of Christ's own 
truth shines forth more clearly from chapter to chap- 
ter; but at the same time the darkness of their unbe- 
lief and murderous hate becomes clearer. " The 
world was made by Him, and the world knew Him 
not : He came unto His own, and His own received 
Him not." Each successive chapter gives us a better 
understanding of those first sentences. 

But parallel with this growing antagonism of the 
Jews, we see a growing fellowship between Christ and 
His own apostles : something of that Sonship which 
was His, being communicated to them ; until at last He 
is able to speak to them on the night of His betrayal 
those marvellous words which we read in the 14th, 
15th, and 16th chapters ; where He even identifies us, 
His disciples, with Himself, as the living branches are 
one with the vine. But this side of His mission, also, 
was foreshadowed in the prologue, where we read, 
" His own," indeed, " received Him not. But as 
many as received Him, to them gave He power to 
become the sons of God." 

So, I think, if you examine the Gospel, you will see 
everywhere how skilfully the evangelist selects his 
material to prove and illustrate those three assertions 
of the prologue: 1st. That Jesus was the Word of 
God made flesh, the light of every man that cometh 
into the world. 2d. That the light shineth in dark- 



214 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



ness, and the darkness comprehended it not ; that He 
came unto His own, and His own received Him not. 
And 3d. That " to as many as received Him, to them 
gave He power to become sons of God." Those 
truths become clearer to us with the teachings and 
events of each succeeding chapter ; until on Calvary 
both the love of God and the wicked hate of man 
stand forever manifested ; and then by the resurrec- 
tion the love of God shows itself finally triumphant ; 
the light, concealed for a moment, bursts forth to 
scatter the power of darkness forevermore. 

No one of the four Gospels makes it a chief pur- 
pose to present an orderly narrative. They are all 
more concerned to offer nourishment to the Chris- 
tian faith, than to satisfy our curiosity as to the earth- 
ly life of Jesus ; consider their almost unbroken 
silence with reference to the first thirty years of that 
life ! But this fourth Gospel seems written with even 
less historical intention than the others. Even more 
clearly than the others, John states, and adheres to, 
his purpose not to relate Christ's deeds and words in- 
discriminately, but only those which will enable us to 
believe. 

And yet, even without historical intention, this 
fourth Gospel has furnished us much of our clearest 
historical knowledge concerning the life of Jesus. 
From the others we should have been likely to sup- 
pose that Christ's ministry lasted but a single year : 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 215 

it is John who has informed us incidentally that the 
time was about three years. From the others we 
might have supposed that the leaders at Jerusalem 
had no personal acquaintance with Christ until that 
last visit ; and we should have been puzzled to ac- 
count for such bitter hatred developed in so short a 
time: it is John who informs us of the earlier visits 
at Jerusalem on occasion of the various feasts, and 
shows the deadly hatred growing. In fact, our knowl- 
edge of the real order of events in Christ's life is de- 
rived almost entirely from this fourth Gospel. 

Moreover, this same Gospel furnishes us the largest 
number of those personal reminiscences which must 
come immediately from an eye-witness of the events. 
And, you remember, this is the only Gospel which 
does come thus immediately from an eye-witness. 
Luke gathers his material, as he may, from various 
sources : Peter's narrative, graphic as it is, reaches us 
only through the pen of Mark : Matthew's narrative, 
through the pen of his unknown Greek transcriber. 
John alone himself writes down for us in Greek his 
own story. 

Accordingly, on almost every page these traces of 
personal reminiscence meet us. The aged writer is be- 
holding once more those events of his youth ; and 
many a trifling detail flashes upon his memory. 
Read the account of his own conversion in the first 
chapter, " for it was about the tenth hour," he says : 



2l6 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



who cares what hour of the day it was when John first 
heard the voice of Jesus ? Ah, but he cares : and that 
dearly cherished reminiscence slips from his pen un- 
noticed. 

Or again, the discovery of the traitor at the last 
supper: the other accounts seemed almost unintel- 
ligible, as if Christ had first given the secret sign, 
that it was the man dipping his hand with Him 
in the dish ; and then had publicly said to Judas, " It 
is thou/' But in John's narrative, the whole scene 
stands revealed. The troubled words of Jesus : " One 
of you shall betray me "; the consternation and sus- 
picion of the disciples ; Peter's signal to John, who 
was reclining next to the Lord ; John's whispered in- 
quiry; Jesus' whispered answer: "It is he to whom 
I give the sop." And then He dipped it and gave it 
to Judas : and then seeing that Judas, though not the 
others generally, understood the significance of the 
act, He said to him : " That thou doest, do quickly." 
And the traitor at once went out, no one else knew 
why. Those other accounts came from men who had 
often heard the story told. This account comes 
from a man who himself saw and remembers. So we 
might mention many other instances. 

And yet, as I said before, John's chief intention is 
not historical : and in some respects, no doubt, the 
earlier Gospels give a closer reproduction of words 
and events than he. There can be little doubt that 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 2 I? 

they reproduce more accurately Christ's characteristic 
manner of speaking. The languages are different, of 
course : he used the Aramaic, while they are all writ- 
ten in Greek. Still, there can be little doubt that the 
Sermon on the Mount, as recorded by Matthew and 
Luke, reproduces for us the characteristic tone and 
rhythm of Christ's own sentences more exactly than 
any chapter in John. For that peculiar style which 
appears everywhere in this fourth Gospel, — in the nar- 
rative, in the discourses of the Baptist and others, as 
well as in the discourses of Christ, — is plainly the 
style of John himself : and in some cases he even 
passes from the teachings of Christ to his own reflec- 
tions about them, without marking the point of tran- 
sition, as in the discourse with Nicodemus. This last 
fact need not at all disturb us ; for it merely shows 
how completely the thought, and even the style of 
John himself had been formed after those teachings 
of Christ which had occupied his meditations for a 
lifetime. As Meyer has said : [John's] " very language 
must needs ever retain that inalienable stamp which 
he once involuntarily received from the heart and 
living word of Christ, and appropriated and preserved 
in all its depth and transparency in the profoundly 
spiritual laboratory of his own long, regenerate life." 

Therefore if the others do show us most accurately 
the form of Christ's language, we must believe that 

John unfolds to us the most of its spirit. I have 
10 



218 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 



sometimes thought that the first three Gospels might 
be called photographs of the Christ, wonderfully ac- 
curate in external details ; while the fourth Gospel is 
like a painting from the hand of a great master, where 
indeed the painter's personality disturbs somewhat 
the exactness of external representation ; but on the 
other hand has brought out mysteriously, through 
the expression of that human face, the hidden nature 
of the Son of God. 

There was one great philosopher among the Greeks, 
of such profound wisdom, and so pure a life, that his 
story has often been compared, even by reverent 
Christians, with the history of Jesus : and it is an in- 
teresting fact that Socrates also committed nothing 
to writing, and lives before the world through the 
testimony of his disciples ; through the simple nar- 
rative of Xenophon's Memorabilia, and the profound 
philosophy of Plato's Dialogues : the one perpetuat- 
ing for us the outer form, the other more of the inner 
spirit of the Master's words. The comparison must 
not be pressed ; and yet it may help to show how the 
first three Gospels and the fourth are both needed to 
complete our knowledge of Jesus the Christ. 

It has sometimes been said that Peter was peculiarly 
the apostle of the primitive church ; Paul the apostle 
of the mediaeval church and of the Reformers ; John 
the apostle of our present age. The remark is as 
true as such generalizations usually are, — especially 



THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. 219 

true in this, that John's teachings must always be re- 
ceived as the final word of apostolic testimony. We 
would not spare the others. So long as there remains 
a church militant on earth, Paul especially will furnish 
the weapons of her warfare ; but John lifts us nearer 
to the beatific vision, lifts us nearer to the church 
triumphant. And for any man, or any age, threat- 
ened, not by false religion, but by irreligion ; not by 
Jewish legalism, or Romish superstition, but by doubt 
of all divine reality ; this Gospel of John will always 
furnish the needed help — its testimonies the welcome 
foundation for a faith. For it offers no doubtful 
argument or wearisome controversy ; but the direct 
vision of that light from above which lighteth every 
man that cometh into the world. 

And that vision of light once presented, must 
quickly pass judgment between all honest doubt and 
wicked unbelief : " for every one that doeth evil hat- 
eth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his 
deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth 
cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made 
manifest, that they are wrought in God." 




Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2006 

PreservationTechnologies 

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